ELINOR WYLLYS.CHAPTER I,"Enter the house, pr'ythee."--ROGERS.{Samuel Rogers (English poet, 1763-1855), "Italy: Genevra" line19. Samuel Rogers befriended James Fenimore Cooper and his familyduring their visits to England in 1826-33}HAD there been a predecessor of Mr. Downing in the country, somefive-and-twenty year since, to criticise Wyllys-Roof, the home ofour friend Elinor, his good taste would no doubt have suggestedmany improvements, not only in the house itself, but also in thegrounds which surrounded it. The building had been erected longbefore the first Tudor cottage was transported, Loretto-like,across the Atlantic, and was even anterior to the days of Grecianporticoes. It was a comfortable, sensible-looking place, however,such as were planned some eighty or a hundred years since, by menwho had fortune enough to do as they pleased, and educationenough to be quite superior to all pretension. The house was alow, irregular, wooden building, of ample size for the tastes andhabits of its inmates, with broad piazzas, which not onlyincreased its dimensions, but added greatly to the comfort andpleasure of the family by whom it was occupied.{"Downing" = Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852), noted Americanrural architect and landscape gardener; "Loretto-like" = afterLoreto, in Italy, where, according to tradition, a brick HolyHouse was miraculously conveyed through the air by angels in1294}The grounds were of the simplest kind. The lawn which surroundedthe house was merely a better sort of meadow, from which thestones and briars had been removed with more care than usual, andwhich, on account of its position, received the attention of oneadditional mowing in the course of the summer. A fine wood, of anatural growth, approached quite near to the house on thenorthern side, partially sheltering it in that direction, whilean avenue of weeping elms led from the gate to the principalentrance, and a row of locusts, planted at equal distances, linedthe low, rude stone wall which shut out the highway. One piazzawas shaded by noble willows, while another was faced by a row ofcherry trees, flanked by peach and pear. Fruit trees, although socommon and so lavish of their blessings in this climate, areoften gathered about American country-houses, instead of beingconfined to gardens devoted to the purpose, as in Europe; a habitwhich pleasantly reminds us that civilization has made a recentconquest over the wilderness in this new world, and that ourforefathers, only a few generations back, preferred the trees ofthe orchard to those of the forest, even for ornament. Fruittrees are indeed beautiful objects when gay with the blossoms ofspring, or rich with the offerings of summer, and, mingled withothers, are always desirable about a dwelling as simple andunpretending in its character as Wyllys-Roof. Beneath the windowswere roses and other flowering shrubs; and these, with a fewscattered natives of the soil--elm, hickory, sycamore, and tuliptrees--farther from the house, were the only attempts atembellishment that had been made. The garden, surrounded by awhite paling, was thought an ornamental object, and lay withinfull view of the drawing-room windows; and yet it was but amixture of the useful and the beautiful, in which the formerlargely predominated. As a kitchen-garden it was certainlyexcellent; but the narrow flower-borders, which surrounded theample beds of melons and strawberries, asparagus andcauliflowers, would have appeared meanly furnished in the eyes ofa flower-fancier of the present day. There was not a hybrid amongthem, nor a single blossom but what bore a plain, honest name;and although there were lilies and roses, pinks and violets inabundance, they would probably have been all rooted out by yourexclusive, fashionable gardener of the last summer, for they werethe commonest varieties only.