Bettina stepped up to the opening in the wall and glanced in. Inside was an enclosed garden. In the winter time one could see that the garden was an old and carefully tended one, which in the spring or summer would be a place of rare loveliness.
This was probably a portion of the English garden of Queen Marie Antoinette, about which Bettina had read. It must have also been a secret garden, for the opening in the wall was scarcely a gateway, a narrow section of stone had been removed, which could be restored and leave no sign.
Without reflecting or considering whether she possessed the right to gratify her curiosity, Bettina slipped inside the little garden.
The grass was still green, the paths carefully tended and free from weeds. In the large flower beds the plants were covered from the winter frosts.
The garden held a remarkable variety of shrubs and trees.
Overhead branches of the trees intertwined like long bare arms. Heavy vines of roses formed dim canopies above white pergolas, which with the coming of spring and summer would be bowers of flowers.
Close against the oval stone wall were carefully trimmed evergreen trees, their eternal green a restful background for the riot of color which the garden must offer in its seasons of blooming.
Bettina wandered farther along the footpaths which led deeper and deeper inside the enclosure. The garden was larger than she had first believed and more fascinating.
Finally she entered a maze, made of closely trimmed box hedge which she had never seen in France. Some of the designs were squares, others oval or triangular in shape. At last she came to the central design, where the hedge had been so trimmed that the grass enclosure was in the shape of a large heart.
Smiling Bettina stopped at this point. How romantic the little garden appeared, shut away from the outside world of long tumult and strife!