and pride.  Every root in it was fragrant with the invisible blossoms of memory,—­memories of the mother who loved and planted and watched them before her, and the grandmother who had cared for them before that.  The spirit of these charming old-fashioned gardens is the spirit of family love; and, if ever blessed souls from their better home feel drawn back to any thing on earth, we think it must be to their flower-garden.

Miss Grace had been up early, and now, with her garden hat on, and scissors in hand, was coming up the steps with her white apron full of roses, white lilies, meadow-sweets, and honeysuckle, for the parlor-vases, when the servant handed her a letter.

“From John,” she said, “good fellow;” and then she laid it on the mantel-shelf of the parlor, while she busied herself in arranging her flowers.

[Illustration:  “From John, good fellow.”]

“I must get these into water, or they will wilt,” she said.

The large parlor was like many that you and I have seen in a certain respectable class of houses,—­wide, cool, shady, and with a mellow old tone to every thing in its furniture and belongings.  It was a parlor of the past, and not of to-day, yet exquisitely neat and well-kept.  The Turkey carpet was faded:  it had been part of the wedding furnishing of Grace’s mother, years ago.  The great, wide, motherly, chintz-covered sofa, which filled a recess commanding the window, was as different as possible from any smart modern article of the name.  The heavy, claw-footed, mahogany chairs; the tall clock that ticked in one corner; the footstools and ottomans in faded embroidery,—­all spoke of days past.  So did the portraits on the wall.  One was of a fair, rosy young girl, in a white gown, with powdered hair dressed high over a cushion.  It was the portrait of Grace’s mother.  Another was that of a minister in gown and bands, with black-silk gloved hands holding up conspicuously a large Bible.  This was the remote ancestor, the minister.  Then there was the picture of John’s father, placed lovingly where the eyes seemed always to be following the slight, white-robed figure of the young wife.  The walls were papered with an old-fashioned paper of a peculiar pattern, bought in France seventy-five years before.  The vases of India-china that adorned the mantels, the framed engravings of architecture and pictures in Rome, all were memorials of the taste of those long passed away.  Yet the room had a fresh, sweet, sociable air.  The roses and honeysuckles looked in at the windows; the table covered with books and magazines, and the familiar work-basket of Miss Grace, with its work, gave a sort of impression of modern family household life.  It was a wide, open, hospitable, generous-minded room, that seemed to breathe a fragrance of invitation and general sociability; it was a room full of associations and memories, and its daily arrangement and ornamentation made one of the pleasant tasks of Miss Grace’s life.