d looked as if they belonged to a Dutch or old
English town. They were burnt down long ago, but they were charmingly
picturesque; the upper stories sometimes projected over the lower, and
the chimneys were sometimes clustered together and built of bright red
bricks.

And I was too happy when I could smuggle myself into the front yard,
with its four lilac bushes and its white fences to shut it in from the
rest of the world, beside other railings that went from the porch down
each side of the brick walk, which was laid in a pattern, and had H.C.,
1818, cut deeply into one of the bricks near the door-step. The H.C.
was for Henry Currier, the mason, who had signed this choice bit of work
as if it were a picture, and he had been dead so many years that I used
to think of his initials as if the corner brick were a little
grave-stone for him. The knocker used to be so bright that it shone at
you, and caught your eye bewilderingly, as you came in from the street
on a sunshiny day. There were very few flowers, for my grandmother was
old and feeble when I knew her, and could not take care of them; but I
remember that there were blush roses, and white roses, and cinnamon
roses all in a tangle in one corner, and I used to pick the crumpled
petals of those to make myself a delicious coddle with ground cinnamon
and damp brown sugar. In the spring I used to find the first green grass
there, for it was warm and sunny, and I used to pick the little French
pinks when they dared show their heads in the cracks of the flag-stones
that were laid around the house. There were small shoots of lilac, too,
and their leaves were brown and had a faint, sweet fragrance, and a
little later the dandelions came into bloom; the largest ones I knew
grew there, and they have always been to this day my favorite flowers.

I had my trials and sorrows in this paradise, however; I lost a cent
there one day which I never have found yet! And one morning, there
suddenly appeared in one corner a beautiful, dark-blue _fleur-de-lis_,
and I joyfully broke its neck and carried it into the house, but
everybody had seen it, and wondered that I could not have left it alone.
Besides this, it befell me later to sin more gravely still; my
grandmother had kept some plants through the winter on a three-cornered
stand built like a flight of steps, and when the warm spring weather
came this was put out of doors. She had a cherished tea-rose bush, and
what should I find but a b