ver, by constant cavings, has swallowed nearly all
its extensive grounds, yet beyond the low-browed Spanish cottage that
clings close within the new levee, "the ghost of a garden" fronts the
river. Here, amid broken marbles--lyreless Apollos, Pegasus bereft of
wings, and prostrate Muses--the hardier roses, golden-rod, and
honeysuckle run riot within the old levee, between the comings of the
waters that at intervals steal in and threaten to swallow all at a gulp.

The naked old house, grotesquely guarded by the stately skeleton of a
moss-grown oak, is thus bereft, by the river in front and the public
road at its back, of all but the bare fact of survival.

No visitor ever enters here; but in the summer evenings two old men may
be seen creeping with difficult steps from its low portal up to the brow
of the bank, where they sit in silence and watch the boats go by.

The picture is not devoid of pathos, and even the common people whisper
together as they look upon the figures of father and son sitting in the
moonlight; and no one likes to pass the door at night, for there are
grewsome tales of ghosts afloat, in which decapitated statues are said
to stalk about the old garden at nightfall.

A sigh always escapes me as I look upon this desolate scene; but it is
not now, but when the old-young man, the son, passes my door each day,
carrying in his pale hands a bunch of flowers which he keeps upon his
desk in the little back office, that my mysterious pain possesses me.

Why does this hope-forsaken man carry a bunch of flowers? Is it the
surviving poet within him that finds companionship in them, or does he
seem to see in their pure hearts, as in a mirror, a reflection of his
own sinless youth?

These questions I cannot answer; but every day, as he passes with the
flowers, I follow him with fascinated eye until he is quite lost in the
distance, my heart rent the while with this incisive pain.

Finally, he is lost to view. The dart passes through and out my breast,
and, as I turn, my eye falls upon a pretty rose-garden across the way,
where live a mother and her two daughters.

* * * *

Seventeen years ago this woman's husband--the father--went away and
never returned. The daughters are grown, and they are poor. The elder
performs some clerical work up in Canal Street, and I love to watch her
trig little figure come and go--early and late.

The younger, who is fairer, has a