She is a capital prize-winner.]
Out in the street, at the off side of the alley-gate, between a rude
fence and an electric-railway siding, in about as much space as would
give standing room to one horse and cart, bloomed--not by right of
lease, but by permission of the railway company--a wealth of annual
flowers, the lowest (pansies and such like) at the outer edge, the
tallest against the unsightly fence. This was the prelude. In the alley
the fence was clothed with vines; the windows--of which there were
two--were decked with boxes of plumbago--pink, violet, white and blue,
and of lady-ferns and maiden-hair. The back yard was a soft, smooth turf
wherever there were not flowers. Along the back doors and windows of the
house and the low-roofed wing a rough arbor was covered with a vine
whose countless blossoms scented the air and feasted the bees, while its
luminous canopy sheltered a rare assemblage of such flowers as bloom and
thrive only for those whom they know and trust. But the crowning
transformation was out in the open sunlight, in the space which had been
the hen-yard. Within it was a holiday throng of the gardening world's
best-known and loved gentles and commons, from roses down to
forget-me-nots. Its screen of poultry-netting had been kept in place,
and no feature on the premises more charmingly showed that this floral
profusion came of no mere greed for abundance or diversity, but of a
true art instinct recognizing the limits of its resources.
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