Page:A Nameless Nobleman.djvu/24

The place was old and irregular, and succeeding generations of Montarnauds had left the impress of their taste in now a dense mass of evergreen forming a background to a great clump of gorgeous bloom; now a fountain, again an arbor, a winding labyrinth leading to a hidden nook of shaded and perfumed rest; again a broad, glowing expanse of massed flowers, geranium, salvia, calceolaria, hydrangea, dahlias, every thing that is positive and imperious of color and form, all weltering in the thick yellow sunshine that seemed to sink into every open pore like wine into the lips of a thirsty man; around these lay borders of pansy and mignonette, and all that is fragrant and unobtrusive, and ready to lend perfume to the beauty of their soulless neighbors; and anon broad ribbons of tulip-beds, and trellises where passion-flower and jasmine and scarlet cypress climbed tumultuously over each other to the very topmost hold, and then waved their long slender arms hither and yon in the effort to grasp at something more. Lilies were there, queen lilies such as the Angel of the Annunciation bears, their milk-white chalices powdered with the gold-dust of promise; lilies of the valley at their feet; lilies from Japan, that land still locked in mystery, yet flinging from her half-opened door this or that object of art and wonder to the French who stood knocking, louis d'or in hand; lilies of Palestine, Solomon lilies, flaunting beneath the Provencal sun robes whose marvel was selected as the type of gorgeous apparel by Him who was born among their glory. And the roses! at the roses we pause: for he who has not seen Provence roses in Provence