I [In the Garden of Dreams]
II [A Marriage Has Been Arranged]
III [A Desirable Family Mansion]
IV [How Allan Came to the Garden]
V [In Which Allan Buys the Manor House]
VI ["I Hate Him—Hate Him I Du!"]
VII ["How Wonderful—the Way of Things"]
VIII ["Kathleen—Do You Remember?"]
IX [How Sir Josiah Opened His Purse]
X [Confidences]
XI [In Which Sir Josiah Proves Himself a Gentleman]
XII [The Hands of Abram Lestwick]
XIII [The Homecoming]
XIV ["His Son's Wife"]
XV ["Will You Take This Man?"]
XVI ["My Lady Merciful"]
XVII [Harold Scarsdale Returns]
XVIII [In the Dawn]
XIX [The Dream Maiden]
XX [The Road to Homewood]
XXI [After Ten Years]
XXII [Mr. Coombe Wears a White Tie]
XXIII ["I Belong to Thee"]
XXIV [In Which Lord Gowerhurst Rises Early]
XXV [Beside the Lake]
XXVI [On Other Shoulders]
XXVII [The Conqueror]
XXVIII [The Watcher]
XXIX [Why Abram Lestwick Stayed from Church]
XXX [The Religion of Sir Josiah]
XXXI ["A Very Worthy Man"]
XXXII [The Awakening]
XXXIII [By the Lake]
XXXIV [The Going of Betty]
XXXV ["I Shall Return"]
THE GARDEN OF
MEMORIES
PROLOGUE
From the house a broad white stone path runs to the very heart of the garden and there opens out into a wide circle in the middle of which is set a sundial, and here too are placed some great benches of the same white stone; where, when the heat of the sun is not too great, it is pleasant enough to sit and watch the glory of the flowers.
They are wealthy folk, the Elmacotts, and they love their garden and pride themselves on it and hold that in all Sussex no soil can produce finer flowers and sweeter fruit, and though in this year of grace seventeen hundred and three the house, which is the Manor House of the Parish of Homewood, has no great antiquity, being scarce more than sixty years old, it has about it that completeness, those niceties of detail, the neatness and the order and the well being that are found only in the home which is ruled by a house-proud mistress.
And Madame Elmacott is proud of her house, proud of her garden, proud of the flowers that grow in it and above all proud of her stalwart sons, Master Nat and Master Dick, who are at this time with his Grace of Marlborough in Flanders, fighting their country's battles.
To-day the sun shines on the garden and the flowers stir gently, swaying in the light breeze that also lifts the white dimity at the open windows of the house, whence comes the sweet tinkling of a spinet, the keys of which are touched by the skilled white fingers of Mistress Phyllis Elmacott.
The tall hollyhocks that cast wavering blue shadows on the white stone pathway nod to one another in the breeze, nod, it seems, knowingly, for from the pathway one may see into the pleasant room where the spinet and its fair player are and seeing these may also see the handsome figure of the Captain, who leans upon the spinet, the better to see into those bright eyes that have brought him home to England and Sussex from across the seas, though at this time in the service of his Grace the Captain General there is much to be done and much to be won.
He has but waited to see and share in the victory of Donauwort and then has come hastening home on the wings of love and with the merry peal of marriage bells a-ringing in his ears.
But it is not of these, not of the dashing Captain in his red coat and fair-haired Mistress Elmacott, who thinks him the most perfect and wonderful, as well as the bravest and handsomest of all created beings. It is of the garden and of a lad who sits on the grassy bank at the edge of the lake and watches with eyes, that yet seem scarcely to see, the slim white figure of a maiden wrought of stone. She stands up from the green waters, in the center of the lake and on her sun-kissed shoulder she holds a pitcher, from which the glittering water is flung aloft into, the air to fall with a pleasant tinkling, back into the green pool beneath.