Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a mowing-machine.
"Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here
moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up into
his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' back at
him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in Selwyn."
Selwyn stood for a while listening to the musical click of the machine,
watching the green shower flying into the sunshine, and enjoying the raw
perfume of juicy, new-cut grass; then he wandered on in quest of Miss
Erroll.
Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out of
bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, and he
passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted peonies--huge, heavy,
double blossoms, fragrant and delicate as roses. Patches of late iris
still lifted crested heads above pale sword-bladed leaves; sheets of
golden pansies gilded spaces steeped in warm transparent shade, but
larkspur and early rocket were as yet only scarcely budded promises; the
phlox-beds but green carpets; and zinnia, calendula, poppy, and
coreopsis were symphonies in shades of green against the dropping pink
of bleeding-hearts or the nascent azure of flax and spiderwort.
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