The tap of her stick on the paths is one of the ghostly sounds that haunt the place, and sometimes it is difficult to know whether it is a woodpecker, or a thrush breaking open a snail, or her stick that makes such a sharp crisp sound on the Summer air.
There is another sound, too, that the Acacia tree knows well. It is the click of glasses under its boughs. On a table placed under the tree is an array of beautiful cut-glass decanters and a number of glasses which reflect in the polished mahogany surface. Round the table four gentlemen sit with white wigs and elegant lace falls at their throats, and ruffles at their wrists. It is a hot Summer afternoon, and so still that not a Rose leaf of those spread on the lawn stirs. A large white sheet lies on the lawn covered with thousands of rose petals left to dry in the sun, and when they are dry, and have undergone a careful mixture with spices, and have herbs added to them by the mistress of the house, they will be placed in china bowls in all the rooms, and will give out a subtle delicious odour.
The man who is dreaming in his garden can see the four gentlemen as plain as life raising their glasses and touch them before drinking the silent toast. And it is difficult to tell whether it is the gardener striking on his frames by accident, or the chink of glasses that sounds so clearly under the Acacia tree.
Now, in another picture the garden holds, things are somewhat altered. Instead of the big Tulip bed on the lawn there are a number of small cut beds with long beds behind them on either side of a new gravel walk. Instead of the older fashioned borders there are startling colour schemes of carpet-bedding in which the flowers are made to look more like coloured earths than anything. In the long beds, instead of the profusion of Hollyhocks, Sunflowers and bushes of Roses, a primness reigns. A row of blue Lobelia backed by a row of white Lobelia, then scarlet Geraniums, then Calceolarias, then crimson Beet plants, every ten yards a Marguerite Daisy sticks up out of the middle of the bed. Only one rambling border remains, and that is hidden from the view of the house windows, but can just be seen from the seat under the Acacia tree. In it Phlox and Red-hot Pokers, Asters, Anemonies, Moss Rose, and French Marigolds grow profusely, and some merciful sentiment has allowed an old twisted Apple tree to remain there.