Right and left of the path were first a bed of gooseberry bushes; next of currant; next of raspberry; next of strawberry; next of old-fashioned flowers; at the corners opposite the porch being spheres of box resembling a pair of school globes.

Over the roof of the house could be seen the orchard, on yet higher ground, and behind the orchard the forest-trees, reaching up to the crest of the hill.
Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a swing-gate leading into a field, across which there ran a footpath.
The swing-gate had just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon, before the paint was dry, and while gnats were still dying thereon, the surgeon was standing in his sitting-room abstractedly looking out at the different pedestrians who passed and repassed along that route.
Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived that the character of each of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by his or her method of handling the gate.
As regarded the men, there was not much variety: they gave the gate a kick and passed through.

The women were more contrasting.

To them the sticky wood-work was a barricade, a disgust, a menace, a treachery, as the case might be.
The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman with her skirts tucked up and her hair uncombed.

She grasped the gate without looking, giving it a supplementary push with her shoulder, when the white imprint drew from her an exclamation in language not too refined.