text:  The plants threw up their straggling arms so high that the sunshine could hardly find its way to the quaint old dial that stood there telling its tale of time though no man regarded; and the cordial fragrance of the strawberry-beds mingling with entangled masses of honeysuckle in their exuberance of midsummer blossom seemed to mock me as I loitered in the dusk near the old gateway with the tantalizing illusions of a fairy-tale--the Barmecide's feast or Prince Desire surveying his princess through the impermeable walls of her crystal palace