The garden, which
was very large, must have been beautiful, in the days when money was
more plenty with the proprietor than at present; but now there were
marks of neglect and decay everywhere, and in some parts of it the
shrubs, and vines, and roses were mixed together in so hopeless a tangle
that to separate them seemed impossible, while the yew trees, of which
there were several, grew dark, and thick, and untrimmed, and cast heavy
shadows upon the grass plats near them. The central part of the garden,
however, showed signs of care. The broad gravel walk was clean and
smooth, and the straight borders beside it were full of summer flowers,
among which roses were conspicuous. Indeed, there were roses everywhere,
for Anthony loved them as if they were his children, and so did the
white-faced invalid indoors, whose room old Dorothy, Anthony's wife,
kept filled with the freshest and choicest. It did not matter to her
that the sick man had wandered very far from the path of duty, and was
dying from excessive dissipation; he was her pride, her boy, whom she
had tended from his babyhood, and whom she would watch over and care for
to the last.
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