Lily Hardy Hammond

In the Garden of Delight Lily Hardy Hammond

There is one thing, at least, in this puzzling world which, though everything changes it, nothing can spoil: and that is out-of-doors. Long ago, when this place was stately old Cedarhurst instead of home-y Bird Corners, and I a wilful small girl climbing trees and tearing my frocks whenever Great-aunt Virginia and Great-aunt Letitia were both looking the other way at the same time-a coincidence as blissful as it was infrequent-I thought being outdoors was heaven enough for anybody. In the long winter afternoons I sat by the big wood fire in the back parlor and hemmed towels and napkins-when I wasn't pulling out yesterday's work because Great-aunt Virginia found the stitches too big: and I looked out at the cold, bare hills, blue and beautiful against the pale sky, and longed to play over them like the winds, and to be whirled up into the air like the brown leaves which scurried about them all winter long.