TO CECILIA If in the summer of thy bright regard Will strew my path with mortal flowers of song. THE CRIMSON WEED THE PROLOGUE I. It was the last week in April. In the garden of an old villa in Tuscany no doubt lurked anywhere that spring had come. The winter had been harsh, but the flowers had gained rather than lost in beauty from the rigour they had fought against in the first months of the year; and now they were out in their thousands roses, hyacinths, jacinths and lilies of the valley. Fontegioia was an old house in a pitiful state of dilapidation. The marble pavement of its portico was overgrown with weeds and discoloured by damp. The slender columns which supported this portico were crumbling here and there, and no one repaired them. There were niches on each side of the arches where stone figures had once stood, but and no one replaced them. there were signs of neglect; pedestals deserted as the niches in the portico were deserted, empty red pots where orange trees should have grown, uncut grass, unclipped cypress - hedges. The flowers in their luxuriant beauty heightened the appearance they had fallen out, In the garden, too, |