noon
`` I have borrowed them from Miss Belcher , who distributes all sorts of garments at Christmas among the youngsters hereabouts , and has rummaged this out of her stock . And after that my father will be glad to make your acquaintance . We shall find him in the garden . Now I must go and see to preparing dinner : for it is past noon , though you may not know it . '' Behold me , half an hour later , clad in a blue jacket very tight at the elbows and corduroy breeches very tight at the knees and warm for the time of year , as I descended with Isabel into the walled garden at the back of the cottage . Its whole area can not have been an acre , and even so the half of it was taken up by a plot of turf , smooth as a bowling green : but beyond this stretched a miniature orchard , and along the walls ran two deep borders crowded with midsummer flowers -- tall white lilies and Canterbury bells ; stocks , sweet williams , mignonette , candytuft and larkspurs ; bushes of lemon verbena , myrtle , and the white everlasting pea . Near the house all was kept in nicest order , with trim ranks of standard roses marching level with the turfed verges , and tall carnations staked and bending towards them across the alley : but around the orchard all grew riotous .