The garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on the exquisite arrangement and propriety, was strewed with children's things; a bag of marbles here, a hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which in former days would have been trained up tenderly, as if beloved. 
The garden, once so daintily trim, was strewed with children's things. 