In the spring this garden was a wonder of tulips and hyacinths and lilacs, of sweet daffodils and white lilies.  In the summer it was ruddy with roses, and blazing with verbenas, and gay with the laburnum’s gold cascade.  Then the musk carnations and the pale slashed pinks exhaled a fragrance that made the heart dream idyls.  In the autumn there was the warm, sweet smell of peaches and pears and apples.  There were morning-glories in riotous profusion, tall hollyhocks, and wonderful dahlias.  In winter it still had charms,—­the white snow, and the green box and cedar and holly, and the sharp descent of its frozen paths to the frozen river.  Councillor Van Heemskirk’s father had built the house and planted the garden, and he had the Dutch reverence for a good ancestry.  Often he sent his thoughts backward to remember how he walked by his father’s side, or leaned against his mother’s chair, as they told him the tragic tales of the old Barneveldt and the hapless De Witts; or how his young heart glowed to their memories of the dear fatherland, and the proud march of the Batavian republic.

But this night the mournful glamour of the past caught a fresh glory from the dawn of a grander day forespoken.  “More than three hundred vessels may leave the port of New York this same year,” he thought.  “It is the truth; every man of standing says so.  Good-evening, Mr. Justice.  Good-evening, neighbours;” and he stood a minute, with his hands on his garden-gate, to bow to Justice Van Gaasbeeck and to Peter Sluyter, who, with their wives, were going to spend an hour or two at Christopher Laer’s garden.  There the women would have chocolate and hot waffles, and discuss the new camblets and shoes just arrived from England, and to be bought at Jacob Kip’s store; and the men would have a pipe of Virginia and a glass of hot Hollands, and fight over again the quarrel pending between the governor and the Assembly.

“Men can bear all things but good days,” said Peter Sluyter, when they had gone a dozen yards in silence; “since Van Heemskirk has a seat in the council-room, it is a long way to his hat.”

“Come, now, he was very civil, Sluyter.  He bows like a man not used to make a low bow, that is all.”

“Well, well! with time, every one gets into his right place.  In the City Hall, I may yet put my chair beside his, Van Gaasbeeck.”

“So say I, Sluyter; and, for the present, it is all well as it is.”

This little envious fret of his neighbour lost itself outside Joris Van Heemskirk’s home.  Within it, all was love and content.  He quickly divested himself of his fine coat and ruffles, and in a long scarlet vest, and a little skull-cap made of orange silk, sat down to smoke.  He had talked a good deal in the City Hall, and he was now chewing deliberately the cud of his wisdom over again.  Madam Van Heemskirk understood that, and she let the good man reconsider himself in peace.  Besides, this was her busy hour.  She was giving out the food for the morning’s breakfast, and locking up the cupboards, and listening to complaints from the kitchen, and making a plaster for black Tom’s bealing finger.  In some measure, she prepared all day for this hour, and yet there was always something unforeseen to be done in it.