Kitty of the Roses

Kitty of the Roses

Through the wide-open window floated in the fragrance of dew-dripping flowers. On the edge of the table a smouldering cigarette sent up a thin, wavering filament of gray smoke that lost itself in the upper gloom of the darkened room, leaving behind it a not-unpleasing odor of the Orient to mingle with the incense from the gardens without. When he paused in his writingand pauses were frequentMr. Stephen Burtons gaze invariably wandered to[10] the sunlighted morning world represented by the vista at his elbow. Immediately below him a small, turf-carpeted garden formed a square of shadow and sunlight. A jasmine clambered and sprawled along the purple brick wall at the rear, and a narrow, chocolate-hued bed of moist loam caught the fallen blooms. The bed held white and purple and lavender iris, and spira, and blue pentstemon, and was bordered with honey-flower. At the end of the old wall, where it formed an angle with an iron fence, a queerly[11] shaped Daphne-tree threw grotesque shadows on the little lawn. But it was beyond the rusty iron barrier that Burtons eyes found their richest reward. There stretched a quadrangle that was bounded by walls on two sides and at the farther end by the back of an old-fashioned Southern house, staid and sleepy-looking, whose second-story porch, half hidden by vines over white-painted iron lattice-work, held a hammock which ever since Burtons coming had remained idle, swinging lazily in the afternoon breezes. The quadrangle was intersected by narrow red gravel paths bordered by box hedges waist-high. And between the hedges, against the walls, along[12] the fence, and clambering upon the house were roses. Never had Burton seen or dreamed of such roses. The garden was a riot of intense reds, of tender pinks, of flaring yellows and dazzling whites, and of every hue and tint between. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 56652
Author: Barbour, Ralph Henry
Release Date: Feb 27, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Von Rapp, Frederic J., 1877-1948