Before the hedge grew so high Evelina could be seen at work in her
garden. She was often stooping over the flower-beds in the early
morning when the village was first astir, and she moved among them
with her watering-pot in the twilight--a shadowy figure that might,
from her grace and her constancy to the flowers, have been Flora
herself.
As the years went on, the arbor-vitae hedge got each season a new
growth and waxed taller, until Evelina could no longer be seen above
it. That was an annoyance to people, because the quiet mystery of her
life kept their curiosity alive, until it was in a constant struggle,
as it were, with the green luxuriance of the hedge.
"John Darby had ought to trim that hedge," they said. They accosted
him in the street: "John, if ye don't cut that hedge down a little
it'll all die out." But he only made a surly grunting response,
intelligible to himself alone, and passed on. He was an Englishman,
and had lived in the Squire's family since he was a boy.
He had a nature capable of only one simple line of force, with no
radiations or parallels, and that had early resolved itself into the
service of the Squire and his house. After the Squire's death he
married a woman who lived in the family. She was much older than
himself, and had a high temper, but was a good servant, and he
married her to keep her to her allegiance to Evelina.
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