Dead leaves, dead dry stalks of foxgloves and mullens.
broken branches, and an arbour with trellised roof, borne down by the weight of the vine.
But in spring and summer the place was gorgeous in parts with a confused tangle of plants and shrubs in flower.

Persian lilacs, syringas, labernums made thickets here and there and covered their heads with bloom.

Passion flowers trailed their long tendrils all over the gallery, and masses of snow-white clematis towered in many of the trees.
All distinction between pathway and border had long since been obliterated, the eyes wandered over a carpet of starred and spangled greenery.

Tall white gladiolas shot up above it, and spires of foxgloves and rockets, while all about them and among the rose-trees, climbed the morning glory and the briony vine.
Stretching in front of the ruined arbour was a lawn, and along one edge of it under the wall, grew a bed of lilies, lilies of the valley, so sweet in their season, that sometimes the old lady's grand-daughters would affirm that a waft of their breath had reached them as they sat up in the gallery at work.
It was towards this spot that Madam Melcombe looked.

Here her unquiet face was frequently turned, from her first early entrance into the gallery, till sunset, when she would sit in one of the alcoves in hot weather.