ent 'washing up' as soon as
possible, so that the family might be well in bed at nine, Mrs. Jerome
_was_ susceptible; and the present lingering pace of things, united with
Mr. Jerome's unaccountable obliviousness, was not to be borne any longer.
So she rang the bell for Sally.

'Goodness me, Sally! go into the garden an' see after your master. Tell
him it's goin' on for six, an' Mr. Tryan 'ull niver think o' comin' now,
an' it's time we got tea over. An' he's lettin' Lizzie stain her frock, I
expect, among them strawberry beds. Mek her come in this minute.'

No wonder Mr. Jerome was tempted to linger in the garden, for though the
house was pretty and well deserved its name--'the White House', the tall
damask roses that clustered over the porch being thrown into relief by
rough stucco of the most brilliant white, yet the garden and orchards
were Mr. Jerome's glory, as well they might be; and there was nothing in
which he had a more innocent pride--peace to a good man's memory! all his
pride was innocent--than in conducting a hitherto uninitiated visitor
over his grounds, and making him in some degree aware of the incomparable
advantages possessed by the inhabitants of the White House in the matter
of red-streaked apples, russets, northern greens (excellent for baking),
swan-egg pears, and early vegetables, to say nothing of flowering
'srubs,' pink hawthorns, lavender bushes more than ever Mrs. Jerome could
use, and, in short, a superabundance of everything that a person retired
from business could desire to possess himself or to share with his
friends. The garden was one of those old-fashioned paradises which hardly
exist any longer except as memories of our childhood: no finical
separation between flower and kitchen garden there; no monotony of
enjoyment for one sense to the exclusion of another; but a charming
paradisiacal mingling of all that was pleasant to the eyes and good for
food. The rich flower-border running along every walk, with its endless
succession of spring flowers, anemones, auriculas, wall-flowers,
sweet-williams, campanulas, snapdragons, and tiger-lilies, had its taller
beauties, such as moss and Provence roses, varied with espalier
apple-trees; the crimson of a carnation was carried out in the lurking
crimson of the neighbouring strawberry-beds; you gathered a moss-rose one
moment and a bunch of currants the next; you were in a delicious
fluctuation between the scent of jasmine and the juice of goose