“I frequently met Nebuchadnezzar, who for the time enjoyed his gardens almost as much as I did.  When relieved from the cares of state and his ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man, quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and architecture.  The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me.  I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners that he often addressed me, asking questions and making suggestions; and it was one afternoon, standing by me as I was at work in a rose-bed, that he said the words which were spoken to me about twenty-four centuries afterward by Maria Edgeworth.  Now, wasn’t that enough to startle a man?”

[Illustration:  Nebuchadnezzar and the gardener.]

“Startle!” exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, “I should have screamed.  I should have thought that some one had come from the dead to speak to me.  But I suppose there was nothing about Maria Edgeworth which reminded thee of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.”

“Yes, there was,” replied her husband:  “there was the same meditative expression of the eyes; the same reflective mood as each one began to speak, as if he and she were merely thinking aloud; the same quick, kind reference to me, as if the speaker feared that my feelings might have been hurt by a presumption that I myself had not developed and improved.

“I had good reason to remember those words of Nebuchadnezzar, for they were the last I ever heard him speak.  A few days afterward I was informed by the chief gardener that the king was about to make a journey across the mountains into Media, and that he intended to establish there what would now be called an experimental garden of horticulture, which was to be devoted to growing and improving certain ornamental trees which did not flourish in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.  His expedition was not to be undertaken entirely for this purpose, but he was a man who did a great many things at once, and the establishment of these experimental grounds was only one of the objects of his journey.

“The chief gardener then went on to say that the king had spoken to him about me and had said that he would take me with him and perhaps put me in charge of the new gardens.

“This mark of royal favor did not please me at all.  I had hoped that I might ultimately become the chief of the Babylonian gardens, and this would have suited me admirably.  It was a position of profit and some honor, and when I thought that I had lived long enough in that part of the world it would have been easy for me to make a journey into the surrounding country on some errand connected with the business of the gardens, and then quietly to disappear?  But if I were to be taken into Media it might not be easy for me to get away.  Therefore I did not wait to see Nebuchadnezzar again and receive embarrassing royal commands, but I went to my home that night, and returned no more to the wonderful Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”