Besides, my absence from Montevideo had already
lasted so long that a few days more could not make much difference one
way or the other; thus it came to pass that I still stayed on, enjoying
the society of my new friends, while every day, every hour in fact,
I felt less able to endure the thought of tearing myself away from
Dolores.
Much of my time was spent in the pleasant orchard adjoining the house.
Here, growing in picturesque irregularity, were fifty or sixty old
peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, and cherry trees, their boles double
the thickness of a man's thigh; they had never been disfigured by the
pruner's knife or saw, and their enormous size and rough bark, overgrown
with grey lichen, gave them an appearance of great antiquity. All about
the ground, tangled together in a pretty confusion, flourished many
of those dear familiar Old World garden flowers that spring up round
the white man's dwelling in all temperate regions of the earth. Here
were immemorial wallflowers, stocks and marigolds, tall hollyhock, gay
poppy, brilliant bachelor's button; also, half hid amongst the grass,
pansy and forget-me-not. The larkspur, red, white, and blue, flaunted
everywhere; and here, too, was the unforgotten sweet-william, looking
bright and velvety as of yore, yet, in spite of its brightness and
stiff, green collar, still wearing the old shame-faced expression, as
if it felt a little ashamed of its own pretty name.
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