During August Doctor Deberle’s garden was like a well of foliage.  The railings were hidden both by the twining branches of the lilac and laburnum trees and by the climbing plants, ivy, honeysuckle, and clematis, which sprouted everywhere in luxuriance, and glided and intermingled in inextricable confusion, drooping down in leafy canopies, and running along the walls till they reached the elms at the far end, where the verdure was so profuse that you might have thought a tent were stretched between the trees, the elms serving as its giant props.  The garden was so small that the least shadow seemed to cover it.  At noon the sun threw a disc of yellow light on the centre, illumining the lawn and its two flower-beds.  Against the garden steps was a huge rose-bush, laden with hundreds of large tea-roses.  In the evening when the heat subsided their perfume became more penetrating, and the air under the elms grew heavy with their warm breath.  Nothing could exceed the charm of this hidden, balmy nook, into which no neighborly inquisition could peep, and which brought one a dream of the forest primeval, albeit barrel-organs were playing polkas in the Rue Vineuse, near by.

“Why, madame, doesn’t mademoiselle go down to the garden?” Rosalie daily asked.  “I’m sure it would do her good to romp about under the trees.”

One of the elms had invaded Rosalie’s kitchen with its branches.  She would pull some of the leaves off as she gazed with delight on the clustering foliage, through which she could see nothing.

“She isn’t strong enough yet,” was Helene’s reply.  “The cold, shady garden might be harmful to her.”

Rosalie was in no wise convinced.  A happy thought with her was not easily abandoned.  Madame must surely be mistaken in imagining that it would be cold or harmful.  Perhaps madame’s objection sprang rather from the fear that she would be in somebody’s way; but that was nonsense.  Mademoiselle would of a truth be in nobody’s way; not a living soul made any appearance there.  The doctor shunned the spot, and as for madame, his wife, she would remain at the seaside till the middle of September.  This was so certain that the doorkeeper had asked Zephyrin to give the garden a rake over, and Zephyrin and she herself had spent two Sunday afternoons there already.  Oh! it was lovely, lovelier than one could imagine.

Helene, however, still declined to act on the suggestion.  Jeanne seemed to have a great longing to enjoy a walk in the garden, which had been the ceaseless topic of her discourse during her illness; but a vague feeling of embarrassment made her eyes droop and closed her mouth on the subject in her mother’s presence.  At last when Sunday came round again the maid hurried into the room exclaiming breathlessly: 

“Oh! madame, there’s nobody there, I give you my word!  Only myself and Zephyrin, who is raking!  Do let her come.  You can’t imagine how fine it is outside.  Come for a little, only a little while, just to see!”