Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

the site, where all the features of rich-colored landscape abounded, and where varied foliage, heathy mountain, and eddying river, all lent themselves to make up a scene of fresh and joyous beauty.

In the marvellous fertility of the soil, too, was found an ally to every prospect of embellishment. Sheltered from north and east winds, plants grew here in the open air, which in less favored spots needed the protection of the conservatory; and thus in the neatly shaven lawn were seen groups of blossoming shrubs or flowers of rare excellence, and the camellia and the salvia and the oleander blended with the tulip, the moss-rose, and the carnation, to stud the grass with their gorgeous colors.

Over the front of the cottage, for cottage it really was, a South American creeper, a sort of acanthus, grew, its crimson flowers hanging in rich profusion over cornice and architrave; while a passion-tree of great age covered the entire porch, relieving with its softened tints the almost over-brilliancy of the