Dearly he loved the large, low rooms, full of comfortable elegance; and the sweet, old-fashioned, Dutch garden, so green through all the snows of winter, so cheerfully grave and fragrant in the summer twilights, so shady and cool even in the hottest noons.
Thirty years ago he was coming through it one July evening.

It had been a very hot day; and the flowers were drooping, and the birds weary and silent.

But Squire Sandal, though flushed and rumpled looking, had still the air of drippy mornings and hazy afternoons about him.

There was a creel at his back, and a fishing-rod in his hand, and he had just come from the high, unplanted places, and the broomy, breezy moorlands; and his broad, rosy face expressed nothing but happiness.
At his side walked his favorite daughter Charlotte,--his dear companion, the confidant and sharer of all his sylvan pleasures.

She was tired and dusty; and her short printed gown showed traces of green, spongy grass, and lichen-covered rocks.