midday
The house , a square brick structure , stood in the midst of a great garden which sloped toward the river , ending in a grassy bank which fell some forty feet to the water 's edge . The garden was now little more than a tangle of neglected shrubbery ; damp , rank , and of that intense blue-green peculiar to vegetation in smoky places where the sun shines but rarely , and the mists form early in the evening and hang late in the morning . `` I shall never forget it as I saw it first , when I arrived there in the chill of a backward June . The long , rank grass , thick and soft and falling in billows , was always wet until midday . The gravel walks were bordered with great lilac-bushes , mock-orange , and bridal-wreath . Back of the house was a neglected rose garden , surrounded by a low stone wall over which the long suckers trailed and matted . They had wound their pink , thorny tentacles , layer upon layer , about the lock and the hinges of the rusty iron gate .