t first struck with the singular
resemblance which they bore to the mutton-chops that are usually brought
on the table at hotels and restaurants,--a resemblance the more striking
from the sprigs of parsley which they produced freely. One plat in
particular reminded me, not unpleasantly, of a peculiar cake, known
to my boyhood as "a bolivar." The owner of the property, however, who
seemed to be a man of original aesthetic ideas, had banked up one of
these beds with bright-colored sea-shells, so that in rainy weather
it suggested an aquarium, and offered the elements of botanical and
conchological study in pleasing juxtaposition. I have since thought
that the fish-geraniums, which it also bore to a surprising extent, were
introduced originally from some such idea of consistency. But it was
very pleasant, after dinner, to ramble up and down the gravelly paths
(whose occasional boulders reminded me of the dry bed of a somewhat
circuitous mining stream), smoking a cigar, or inhaling the rich aroma
of fennel, or occasionally stopping to pluck one of the hollyhocks with
which the garden abounded. The prolific qualities of this plant alarmed
us greatly, for although, in the first transport of enthusiasm, my wife
planted several different kinds of flower-seeds, nothing ever came up
but hollyhocks; and although, impelled by the same laudable impulse, I
procured a copy of "Downing's Landscape Gardening," and a few gardening
tools, and worked for several hours in the garden, my efforts were
equally futile.

The "extensive shrubbery" consisted of several dwarfed trees. One was
a very weak young weeping willow, so very limp and maudlin, and so
evidently bent on establishing its reputation, that it had to be tied up
against the house for support. The dampness of that portion of the house
was usually attributed to the presence of this lachrymose shrub. And
to these a couple of highly objectionable trees, known, I think, by the
name of Malva, which made an inordinate show of cheap blossoms that they
were continually shedding, and one or two dwarf oaks, with scaly leaves
and a generally spiteful exterior, and you have what was not inaptly
termed by our Milesian handmaid "the scrubbery."

The gentility of our neighbor suffered a blight from the unwholesome
vicinity of McGinnis Court. This court was a kind of cul de sac that,
on being penetrated, discovered a primitive people living in a state of
barbarous freedom, and apparently spending