But an orchard dies hard ; and this one , which must have been a very delightful spot once , was delightful still , none the less so for the air of gentle melancholy which seemed to pervade it , the melancholy which invests all places that have once been the scenes of joy and pleasure and young life , and are so no longer , places where hearts have throbbed , and pulses thrilled , and eyes brightened , and merry voices echoed . The ghosts of these things seem to linger in their old haunts through many empty years . The orchard was large and long , enclosed in a tumbledown old fence of longers bleached to a silvery gray in the suns of many lost summers . At regular intervals along the fence were tall , gnarled fir trees , and an evening wind , sweeter than that which blew over the beds of spice from Lebanon , was singing in their tops , an earth-old song with power to carry the soul back to the dawn of time . Eastward , a thick fir wood grew , beginning with tiny treelets just feathering from the grass , and grading up therefrom to the tall veterans of the mid-grove , unbrokenly and evenly , giving the effect of a solid , sloping green wall , so beautifully compact that it looked as if it had been clipped into its velvet surface by art . Most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass ; but at the end where Eric stood there was a square , treeless place which had evidently once served as a homestead garden . Old paths were still visible , bordered by stones and large pebbles . There were two clumps of lilac trees ; one blossoming in royal purple , the other in white . Between them was a bed ablow with the starry spikes of June lilies . Their penetrating , haunting fragrance distilled on the dewy air in every soft puff of wind . Along the fence rosebushes grew , but it was as yet too early in the season for roses . Beyond was the orchard proper , three long rows of trees with green avenues between , each tree standing in a wonderful blow of pink and white . The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had ever done before . He was not given to romantic fancies ; but the orchard laid hold of him subtly and drew him to itself , and he was never to be quite his own man again . He went into it over one of the broken panels of fence , and so , unknowing , went forward to meet all that life held for him . He walked the length of the orchard 's middle avenue between long , sinuous boughs picked out with delicate , rose-hearted bloom . When he reached its southern boundary he flung himself down in a grassy corner of the fence where another lilac bush grew , with ferns and wild blue violets at its roots . From where he now was he got a glimpse of a house about a quarter of a mile away , its gray gable peering out from a dark spruce wood . It seemed a dull , gloomy , remote place , and he did not know who lived there . He had a wide outlook to the west , over far hazy fields and misty blue intervales .
The sun had just set , and the whole world XXXXX green meadows beyond swam in golden light .
Along as between from in into of on over to