but hollyhocks; and although, impelled by the same laudable impulse, I
procured a copy of "Downing's Landscape Gardening," and a few gardening
tools, and worked for several hours in the garden, my efforts were
equally futile.
The "extensive shrubbery" consisted of several dwarfed trees. One was
a very weak young weeping willow, so very limp and maudlin, and so
evidently bent on establishing its reputation, that it had to be tied up
against the house for support. The dampness of that portion of the house
was usually attributed to the presence of this lachrymose shrub. And
to these a couple of highly objectionable trees, known, I think, by the
name of Malva, which made an inordinate show of cheap blossoms that they
were continually shedding, and one or two dwarf oaks, with scaly leaves
and a generally spiteful exterior, and you have what was not inaptly
termed by our Milesian handmaid "the scrubbery."
The gentility of our neighbor suffered a blight from the unwholesome
vicinity of McGinnis Court. This court was a kind of cul de sac that,
on being penetrated, discovered a primitive people living in a state of
barbarous freedom, and apparently spending the greater portion of their
lives on their own door-steps. Many of those details of the toilet which
a popular prejudice restricts to the dressing-room in other localities,
were here performed in the open court without fear and without reproach.
Early in the week the court was hid in a choking, soapy mist, which
arose from innumerable washtubs. This was followed in a day or two later
by an extraordinary exhibition of wearing apparel of divers colors,
fluttering on lines like a display of bunting on ship-board, and whose
flapping in the breeze was like irregular discharges of musketry. It was
evident also that the court exercised a demoralizing influence over the
whole neighborhood. A sanguine property-owner once put up a handsome
dwelling on the corner of our street, and lived therein; but although
he appeared frequently on his balcony, clad in a bright crimson
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