“What, ze garden?” came Pippa’s reply.
Barnabas put one foot on a stout branch of ivy, and clinging to another branch above him, heaved himself noiselessly to the top of the wall.
Then he saw Pippa. She was seated on a garden bench, her hat in her hands, and on the bench beside her was an old man. His beard, long and snow-white, reached almost to his waist. His hair, also snow-white and very thick, glistened in the sunlight, for his head was uncovered. His clothes, Barnabas saw, were dark and well-cut, and his voice was peculiarly melodious and refined.
“Well, upon my word!” ejaculated Barnabas, quite forgetting that he was speaking aloud.
The old man looked up. “Ah,” he said, with a quaint smile, “so you, too, have found the ivy route.”
“You don’t mean to say Pippa climbed up here?” exclaimed Barnabas, absolutely forgetful of his own rather curious position.
“But I did,” cried Pippa joyfully, “and he saw me, and asked me to come in and see ze garden. But did you ever see such a garden?”
“Never!” said Barnabas enthusiastically, surveying it from his post of vantage.
Smooth lawns with close-clipped edges, and flower-beds a mass of colour met his eye. There were larkspurs tall and slender, from sapphire blue to turquoise. There were great tree lupins, there were roses of every shade and shape imaginable. There were crimson and blue salvias, scarlet and white phloxes, borders of African marigolds—a blaze of orange; and there was a great bed of hollyhocks, among whose silken flowers butterflies innumerable were hovering. In the middle of the lawn was a marble basin full of crystal water, on whose edge white pigeons were preening themselves, and a couple of gorgeous peacocks spread tails of waking eyes to the sun.
“Will you not,” said the old man courteously, “follow Pippa’s example and enter the garden by the door? You will find it unfastened.”