Sally drew the long pins from her hat, laid them, with the floating white veil and her coat, on a chair in one corner, and began to move softly about in her restful, capable way. Her very presence, I had once said of her, would make a home, and I remembered this a little later as I watched the shadow of her head flit across the faded walls above the fine old wainscoting, from which the white paint was peeling in places. Her touch, swift and unfaltering, released some spirit of beauty and cheerfulness which must have lain imprisoned for a generation in the superb old rooms. On the floor with us there were no other tenants, but when I heard an occasional sound in the room above, I remembered that the agent had told me of an aristocratic, though poverty-stricken, maiden lady, who was starving up there in the midst of some rare pieces of old Chippendale furniture, and with the portrait of an English ancestress by Gainsborough hanging above her fireless hearth.
"The baby is asleep, so Aunt Euphronasia and I are cooking supper," said Sally, when she had spread the cloth over the little table, and laid covers for two on either side of the shaded lamp; "at least she's cooking and I'm serving. Come into the garden, Ben, before it's ready, and run with me down the terrace."
"The garden is ruined. I saw it when I came over with the agent."
"Ruined? And with such lilacs! They are a little late because of the cold spring, but a perfect bower."
She caught my hand as she spoke, and we passed together through the long window leading from our bedroom to the porch, where a few startled swallows flew out, crying harshly, from among the white columns. Many of the elms had died; the magnolias and laburnums, with the exception of a few stately trees, had decayed on the terrace, and the thick maze of box was now thin and rapidly dwindling away from the gravelled paths. On the ground, under the young green of dandelion and wild violets, the rotting leaves of last year were still lying; and as we descended the steps, and followed the littered walks down the hill-side, broken pieces of pottery crumbled beneath our feet.
Clasping hands like two children, we stood for a minute in silence, with our eyes on the ruin before us, and the memory of the enchanted garden and our first love in our thoughts. Then, "Oh, Ben, the lilacs!" said Sally, softly.
They were there on all sides, floating like purple and white clouds in the wind, and shedding their delicious perfume over the scattered rose arbours and the dwindling box. Light, delicate, and brave, they had withstood frost and decay, while the latticed summer houses had fallen under the weight of the microphylla roses that grew over them. The wind now was laden with their sweetness, and the golden light seemed aware of their colour as it entered the garden softly through the screen of boughs.
"Do you remember the first day, Ben?"
"The first day? That was when President lifted me on the wall—and even the wall has gone."
"Did you dream then that you'd ever stand here with me like this?"