In the middle
distance symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss
bounded by croquet hoops formed the base of shrubs
shaped like orange-trees but studded with large pink
and red roses. Gigantic pansies, considerably larger
than the roses, and closely resembling the floral pen-
wipers made by female parishioners for fashionable
clergymen, sprang from the moss beneath the rose-
trees; and here and there a daisy grafted on a rose-
branch flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr.
Luther Burbank's far-off prodigies.
In the centre of this enchanted garden Madame
Nilsson, in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin,
a reticule dangling from a blue girdle, and large yellow
braids carefully disposed on each side of her muslin
chemisette, listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul's
impassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehension
of his designs whenever, by word or glance, he
persuasively indicated the ground floor window of the
neat brick villa projecting obliquely from the right wing.
"The darling!" thought Newland Archer, his glance
flitting back to the young girl with the lilies-of-the-
valley. "She doesn't even guess what it's all about."
And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a
thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine
initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for
her abysmal purity. "We'll read Faust together . . . by
the Italian lakes . . ." he thought, somewhat hazily
confusing the scene of his projected honey-moon with
the masterpieces of literature which it would be his
manly privilege to reveal to his bride.
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