Part 6

In our garden the birds have divided the kingdom amongst them, and in this half is the portion that fell to the reed sparrow. He keeps the Silver Birch alive with his busy note. Landmarks, known only to themselves, divide the territory of the reed sparrow from the realm of the nightingale. The fiery-hearted nightingale! He sings all day, and his song makes the night glorious. The north-east region of the garden he keeps for himself alone. There, on still evenings, long after sunset, is heard the faint barking of distant watch-dogs, or the sound of horses’ hoofs on the road. There is his favourite tree--the grand old Thorn--where, as he sings, he may press a thousand thorns into his breast! There, across the hedge, he sees the meadow with a shimmering yellow of Cowslips all over it--if Cowslips be his desire, as is said. There, not too far off, is the straight long railroad--and he loves the thunder of the train, and the red, fire-spitting engine; but late in the night, when there is dark and death-like silence among the trees, then the nightingale claims possession of the whole, and all the garden is his own. I know not if the nightingale’s song be melancholy or joyous. His voice has all the pathos of the finest things, and in the broken notes we feel that not all nor half his soul is uttered, and in each splendid fragment there is the sense of endless possibilities; this, I think, is the secret of the nightingale’s incomparable charm.

I have omitted to mention amongst our Pansies, a very choice kind. It is a curious burnt-brown colour, like the once fashionable “Paris brûlé.” We name it Highcliff, after the place from whence we had it first. Two large pink Oleanders in the greenhouse will soon be blossoming all over. We tried them last year in the open air, but they did not do, and had to return to their glass. A lovely face gazes at me all the time I write, and will not suffer itself to be neglected! It is a choice white Cactus of great size, with warm lemon colouring in the outer leaves. The stamens are so delicately set, they tremble at the slightest touch, and the starry pointal is itself a flower!

JUNE.

A Mosaic of Nectared Sweets.

IX.

JUNE.

Of Pink May--Swallows in the Porch--Flowers de Luce--Poppies--A Little Scotch Rose, and “Clutie.”

June 6.--It is difficult to know what to say about the garden in June. There is so much to say, I can hardly tell how to begin. The leafy month earns well its title, so grandly full-leafed are the trees; in finer leaf, I think, than they have been for many a year. The Elms stand out against the sky in rounded blocks of green, and in the Lime avenue the broad leaves meeting overhead are round and pure in outline, untouched as yet by destroying worms, untorn by tempests. The young Horse Chestnuts along the little watercourse are nearly twice the size they were last summer, when cruel winds had left them only a few ragged discoloured leaves. The flower-spikes of a Chestnut within the garden measure near a foot in length. The great red Horse Chestnut (Pavias rubra) is red all over; it is a mass of blossom almost from the ground upwards to the very top. The tree is a fine sight, and if it were not so common one scarcely should tire of admiring it. The season makes a great difference in the colouring of the blossoms. Sometimes they come out almost yellow, from too little sun and too much rain; but in the rich floraison of to-day their colour is almost crimson. Then the Thorns are in great perfection; the branches of double Pink May can be compared to nothing else but bars of pink velvet. The double scarlet varieties are finer than usual, and under the hot sun their vivid colour is quite dazzling. We find this sort rather capricious; some years there is more green than red, and when the trees were younger the red was finer. A little single Thorn draped itself down to the very grass in scarlet bloom; but it lasts so brief a time that every petal now has fallen. It is a picturesque, delightful tendency in all trees to bend and stretch out to meet each other; their branches love to touch and interlace. So, at this time, across many of our green garden walks the flowering May makes beautiful red-garlanded arches. Pink May and Laburnum interweave their branches, and in another place a Cherry and a Thorn have succeeded in meeting. A little further on, an Apple reaches out long arms above the turf to touch a copper Beech. Here, in this corner, there is also Laurel; and Brake Fern, springing of itself, will soon be tall enough to reach almost the Apple branches. The Beeches, on either side the Allée Verte, embower the walk, while along the outmost line their slender drooping shoots stretch themselves to meet and embrace more staid and slow young Elm branchlets, spreading from the great old trees. The nightingale’s old White Thorn shone white like a great snow mountain for about ten days, surpassing all the rest in beauty; and not far from it, deep in a thorny thicket of Dewberry mixed with Ivy and Nettles, we found the nightingale’s nest. I often visited her, and she would lie close, with head laid back, and bright, black, watchful eye fixed full upon me; but I never saw her strange, smoked eggs, because she would never stir from the nest. Massive gleams--if such an anomaly can be said--of yellow Spanish and English Broom are shining between green trees, in contrast with paler gold of overhanging Laburnum. I wonder if the Riviera Broom would live in this climate. I mean the Broom that grows something like a Rush, with the flowers set all round its polished stem. In the orchard border an immense luxuriantly rounded bush of Weigela replaces the Pyrus of last month, the lovely pink of its blossom set off by the tender green around it. These are all beautiful bits of colour, and yet they are only samples, as it were, of what I wish and may partly hope for some day; for a Laburnum colonnade is in contemplation, and lilac closes, and golden cloisters of Genista, some day, there must be! Something also should be made of the pale hanging clusters of Wistaria--a pergola ceiled in with its lilac pendants, or small bushes standing alone, in some grassy place. Our Rhododendrons and Azaleas are in great beauty, and since last year, are grown and filled out; the season seems in some way to have pleased them well. We do not attempt fine sorts, though there is just a sprinkling of crimson and white and a few others, amongst the showy old pinkish-lilac sort. The broad border by the side of the walk along the Holly hedge is filled with Rhododendrons and Azaleas; as yet only the common--yet always beautiful--yellow and creamy-white Azalea, filling all the air with its peculiar scent. The success of this border is especially pleasant, for the young Americans made one rather nervous at times during the early spring--on days when the weather did not exactly suit them they would look so pitiable and dejected, with their leaves hanging straight down. Into this border were moved most of the aged drawn-up Rhododendrons, that used to crowd the shrubberies. Here, with more room, they have begun to bush out healthily. Yet there is at present no peat or made-up bed, and the ground is flooded every winter. We think of giving them a few cartloads of peat next autumn, just by way of encouragement. In another year this walk will deserve to be called “the Rhododendron Walk.” At the back of the border two double scarlet May trees are now radiant with blossom. About three years ago they were removed here out of the garden, where for some reason they had become sickly and had ceased to bloom. Change of air and scene has worked wonders: they have increased greatly in size, and the move is apparently forgotten. Beyond these is the new orchard, deep in growing grass, and then the Larch Walk; and--and then--palings, if the truth must out! Beyond the Holly hedge, in the shrubbery, wherein we stuff everything that has nowhere else to go, there is at this moment a white glory of snow-balled Gueldres Rose. In my ideal garden there shall be large single trees of Gueldres Rose standing alone; not, as they generally are grown, “smored up” with crowded shrubs.

But we have wandered far away from the beloved garden. Over the south porch is the Lady’s Bower--the chamber always so called in old English houses--with Vine-wreathed windows. Swallows are building in the garden porch. It is the chimney swallow, with the red throat. Their confidence and tameness, the perpetual darting in and out of blue-black wings (like tenderly domesticated trout! as Mr. Ruskin says), and the conversational cheery twitter that goes on all day long, are a continual feast. South, north, and east are the three porches of the house, and swallows in all three. At the north they are more bold, but somehow less familiar. Darting shoals of swallows dash in and out, through the open doors into the house, and two nests are now nearly built. The family motto, “God’s providence is my inheritance,” written round the porch walls, suits well such a place of birds; while the footless martin--sign of the seventh son--borne on the stone shield over the door among the Roses and Ivy, our swallows may also feel to be not wholly inappropriate. Under the east porch, which is now green with Virginian Creeper and Vine--and which will be in its season purple with Clematis, a pair of swallows are arranging a settlement. Here also, though not quite so welcome, no one dreams of denying them. After the sun has turned the corner of the house, this porch is cool and shady. On the threshold is set the legend, “Nos et meditemur in horto,” taken from a sun-dial in the nuns’ garden at Polesworth, near Tamworth. The invitation, I think, is generally disregarded. Many cross that threshold to walk in the garden and admire the flowers, or to play tennis, or perhaps--to smoke. But I do not think people often meditate much in the garden in these days. Dogs do sometimes, as they sit in the sun. But I wonder how it is done!

From the south front a lot of Everlasting Pea has wound itself round between the wall and the Yew buttress, taking up fully one half of the porch. It is well named Everlasting! One has nothing to do but to dig it up, and cut and hack it away, and the next year it will appear strong and hearty and in double quantity. It takes no hint that there may be too much of a good thing! And yet, when it looks so fresh and handsome, with its large bright flowers, it would be cruel to wish it away. So let it be, to teach its lesson and to smother as it will. The white Irises are nearly over, and Wood Strawberries begin to redden under the windows. An old Maiden’s Blush Rose, covered with buds, peeps in at the dining-room window on one side, and on the other is the lovely pink of a most perfect Moss Rose. The parterr in front of the window is bedded out, of course. I know that it soon will be a blaze of well-chosen colour; but excepting the golden mount of Stonecrop in the centre, I do not take much personal interest in its summer phase. It is fortunate for the garden’s character that this should be so; for as the invention of new combinations of plants and colours would be to me impossible, this is left always in our Gardener’s hands, with full confidence that the result will be as perfect as such things can be. From the dining-room window we can also see, between the Sumac and a Box tree, near where a Pæony showers crimson on the daisies, a tiny mound of turf. It has been there since the end of last month; and under it lies the dear little favourite of nine summers--Clutie, the little black Skye terrier. She always loved the dining-room!... We can now almost walk all round the garden in deep cool shade, such growth the trees have made! The Broad Walk must always be exposed to the sun; but from the west of it, across the lawn where the old bowling-green once was, the distance from shade to shade lessens year by year as the trees grow on. There is a charming well-shaded welt along the grass, of purple Pansies and white Pinks, in two thick lines; and on the sunny side a very bright dash of Limnanthes Douglasii has made a self-sown edging. As if it enjoyed the pleasant coolness of a north-west border, one lovely double Narcissus still lingers on in her early freshness. When hot sunbeams pierce the shade, every day I think must be her last. The Spurge Laurel has relapsed into the plain dulness of its summer state, but the Iris bank upon which it grows is as lovely as heart can desire. Cedar and Copper Beech and one or two Firs cast light shadows upon the company of Irises, and help them not to wither up too quickly. The prevailing hue is lilac, with stronger tones, and yellows intermixed. Each one in turn seems loveliest, but one chief beauty (Iris pallida) has broad petals of soft grey, most delicately flushed with pink. Then there are lilacs marked with deeper lines and white with lilac edges (Iris aphylla), finely pencilled; Enchantress, and several other yellow Variegatas, with lines of red or brown; pale yellow, with the three outer petals intense velvety-purple; and one pale bluish, with deep blue-purple velvet outside, and bright yellow brush, well marked. These two are much better than gay Darius, or the handsome sullen Versailles. The sober old Marquise (Iris lurida), too--who is, however, more like Mrs. Delany in dove-coloured mode silk hood!--after long delay, is there amongst the best. Does any plant exist that loves not a corner or an edge? I think not one; so a little corner here, where a narrow grass path crosses the Iris bank into the Beechen close, is made especially lovely by the undesigned grouping of three Irises, enriched by a background of green Ferns and Beech. The centre of the group is a deep red-purple Iris (from Vesuvius), a finely coloured yellow and purple, and between them a pure white. These grow tall and stately from out their straight stiff leaves, while a little Welsh Poppy, established there by chance, brings in its crumpled lemon-gold with the happiest effect. Colour effects, wherever they appear in our garden, are seldom planned. Somehow it does not come naturally to think, “Here there shall be blue Larkspur and white Lilies,” or there red Poppies and something else. But it is quite an exquisite delight to find the most beautiful accidents of colour in unexpected places all about the garden. Then these chances may give hints, which we can take or not. At a corner behind the dovecote there is a grand crimson Pæony, mixed up with brilliant orange Marigolds, some of them black-eyed; red and yellow are splendid, if well used. Against the dark brown of a Cryptomeria Elegans stands a tall Tulip, like white china painted and streaked blood-red; at least it is over now, but I see it all the same. Then there is a patch of Welsh Poppy, growing just as one finds a patch of Gentian or white Crocus on the Alps--and with it London Pride, a mass of feathery red, growing in the same way. Under the trees, one meets a pallid Columbine, looking like a ghost, and just by chance in the lilac Iris bed occurs one rich carmine Rose. I do not even think the delicately refined colour combination of dwarf-growing Gloire de Dijon Roses and bronze Heartsease was quite intentional; they mix, however, strangely well. And the bed of pink Roses--Prevost and Jules Margottin--with the white Pink “Mrs. Sinkins,” promises to be an equal success.

One would fain stay for awhile the steps of the summer flowers in the garden; but these bright daughters of the year, in long procession, flit by more swiftly as each new day arises. They are in such a hurry now to come and to be gone, alas! Even at this very moment there are signs of the quick approach of some of our latest loves. For in the east border, among crimson Pæonies and lingering purple Iris, appears already a single Dahlia! In such a multitude one hardly knows which flowers to note, they are all so fair. But in the Fantaisie, I think I could almost let the Roses go which are bursting into bloom as bushes and as pillar Roses, just to keep it a little longer as it is now, with the hosts of White Foxgloves, with double white Rockets, yellow Day Lilies, and puce-purple Columbines; Irises and white stars of Nicotiana rising over an edging of pink and white Phlox Nelsoni--all these and many more, set off by Cupressus and Fir, interspersed among the flowers beyond; and flaring across the grass walk, a great fiery scarlet Oriental Poppy. With the morning shining through it, this flower seems made up of fire from the sun itself--the very purest possible essence of scarlet. Several magnificent Poppies light up the garden at different points. Their scarlet is a fast colour; neither wind nor sun will scorch or change it in the least, and in this quality it is superior to so many flowers whose colours fly directly--some more easily than others. The brown Heartsease cannot stand the sun, while the large purple is unmoved. The crimson of the Pæony flies; and the rose-red double Pyrethrum scorches quickly. Lilac (excepting in Wistaria) seems one of the fastest colours in the garden!--though rain-drops standing all night in a half-faded lilac Iris become a most beautiful colour! Although it seems that scarlet, yellows, and colours in which blue is mixed stand best. Besides the great scarlet Poppies, the annual Poppies are coming on, in all their varied pinks, and reds, and whites; their large crumpled petals have the shape and all the transparent delicacy of rare sea shells. There is also a charming uncertainty as to the colours or amount of doubleness to be expected. Amongst the best are bright reds with a clear white eye, and pink-hemmed whites. But whenever anything approaching a common field Poppy makes its appearance amongst them--as often happens, they have such a strong tendency to run back--it has to be pulled up immediately. Our Columbines are not so fine as they were last summer; their flowers are smaller and not so free in form. The Californian scarlet and yellow is so small as to be a miniature of itself. There is, however, one fine plant with flowers pale violet and primrose, and the various tints of “crushed strawberry” are very lovely, especially in the double Columbines.

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June 15.--Here is the middle of the month, and the garden is more bewildering than ever! Rosebuds in countless multitudes are blooming everywhere, in every part. And as the fashion is to call her so, we must allow the Rose to be queen of flowers; and since it is most true that Roses are--

“Not royal in their smells alone, but in their hue,”

so, though my beloved Iris has not yet faded from the garden, the Rose now must be worshipped. One by one we have already greeted many of our old best favourites. Amongst them Boursault came first, climbing the south gables of the house; then Souvenir d’un Ami, large and full flushed, at the very top of the long bare old stem of a climber, any age; then Gloire de Dijon, which, though even more profuse in its bloom than usual, has a something not quite right about it this year--a sort of old expression. After that, Maiden’s Blush and Moss Rose. A great wild blush of Boursault Rose grows at the north end of the garden--the flowers are lovely, recalling a little in their colour and irregular shape what I remember as “the Musk Rose,” in the gardens of former days. Coupe d’Hébé, on the wall of the gardener’s cottage, is perfect in scent and shape and in true rose-colour. The yellow Briar is finer than usual, and Damask Roses are opening fast. La France, too--the Rose whose scent is made of the finest attar--has delighted us with half-a-dozen beautiful blooms; Blairii No. 2 begins to crest the wire arches (one never hears of No. 1!). But among the Rose joys which abound already, or that we still expect in endless succession, none are so dear to me as one little ragged bush, covered now with small white Scotch Roses of exquisite perfume. This little Rose bush is forty-eight years old, to my certain knowledge. It was planted by my father, and it has been mine for the last twenty years. Last year it showed some signs of feebleness, so we moved it from the over-crowded place where it had been for eleven years, into a newly made bed with a south aspect. There, with a companion of the same kind, it promises to take a new lease of life. Strange that such a little Rose should thus live on for well-nigh half a century, calmly putting forth its leaf and bloom summer after summer, whilst so many of the men and women who knew it once have passed away! It somehow makes one think of the old monk pointing to the frescoes on his convent walls, and saying, “These are the realities; we are the shadows.”

A word of praise must be said for the blue and green of Anchusa Italica at the southern end of the Broad Walk, and the beds of white Pinks (these are the old-fashioned “maiden pinks of odour faint”), mixing their perfume deliciously with Musk. The beds and large patches of beautiful “Mrs. Sinkins” are very good this season. They are, as Bacon would say, “fast flowers of their smell,” in flavour like Clove Carnations.

JULY.

“As the last taste of sweet is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past.”--SHAKESPEARE.

MIDSUMMER AND JULY.

Of Pæonies--Iris Sibirica--Green Peas--Fennel--Strawberries--Lilies--The Vine.

June 24.--“Ere the parting hour go by, quick, thy tablets, Memory.” In less than a week July will be here, and June will fade away into the past and be forgotten, while more than half its loveliness is still unnoted and untold. So here on Midsummer night, when the spirits of earth and air have power, let me call back for a moment the dear-worth vision of flowers that were my delight in the gone sweet days of early June. I would try also to fix the remembrance of a few, out of the thousand glories of the day, doomed to die before ever the story of next month begins. And first the Pæonies, which I have as yet scarcely named. Earliest of all came the crimson-pink single Pæony (Pæonia peregrina), with yellow stamens and bluish leaves, like a giant Rose of Sharon (the single red Scotch Rose); then the pale pink double; then the heavy crimson, that pales so quick in sun or rain; then, most beautiful of all, the pure, cold, white Pæony, with a faint tinge of colour on its outer petals. Last of all the large rose-red--rose-coloured, with an evanescent perfume like a dream of the smell of a wild Rose, yet in substance so staunch a flower that I have known rose Pæonies retain their beauty for two full weeks in a glass of water. All these, excepting one or two who here and there outstay the rest, are gone by.

And then the Elder! The hedgerows have been white with it; and there were days when all the air was scented with it, and the country smelt of Elder! The path under our one tree is now a milky way, covered with a myriad little fallen stars. They remind one of the far-away Olives’ starry blossoms, when they fall softly among Lady Tulips and Gladioli in May. Syringa (Philadelphus, or Mock Orange) has come and almost gone; three varieties--the old small one, the large-flowered, and the half-double sort. I like most the first, and this has also the most powerful scent. A large old bush of it grows in the grass, just without the glass door in the wall opening into the greenhouse. Dear Syringa! best hated and best loved of flowers. The lovers of it hail its blooming with enthusiasm, and break off sprigs to wear as they pass the bush, whilst others will go the other way round to avoid passing near. And now it suffers still further insult by being denied its own old name, Syringa! Even in 1597, in Gerarde’s time, there began to arise some confusion between it and the Lilac, or “Blew Pipe Tree.”

And now, at this very time, has come a new burst of Irises--the narrow-leaved kinds. Not the real Spanish Irises; their time is not yet. We have a few old plants whose flowers are deep bronze, flame-centred, in yellow gold, and a stronger, commoner kind, of full lilac colour. One little plant, growing in a pet corner by the iron gate in the south wall, has a delicate primrose and lilac-tipped bloom. And there is the great white Flag Iris, whose grand leaves stand four feet high. The right place has not yet been found for this fine plant. For three years past he has just borne with us, and no more; I fear he dislikes us--and he shows it. By the watercourse the yellow Flags are as yellow as possible, in rich contrast with their dark green leaves; and in the Fantaisie, where the China Tulip stood last month, showing bright against the dusky Cryptomeria Elegans, is now a fine root of Iris (Sibirica alba). The blue Sibirica is good, but this white variety is most lovely. One could not pass it by without remarking the peculiar whiteness of its small shapely flowers, set on such long slender stalks. How wonderful are the contrasts of white in flowers! Of those now in bloom together, one hardly knows which to call the whitest of them all. This little Iris retains through its whiteness a dim remembrance, as it were, of blue.

There is the kitchen garden, too! The fresh and brilliant beauty that just now it holds within its walls will soon be past, giving place to richer, more sober colours. Looking through the old ironwork of the gate, up the straight middle walk, there is such a splendour of brightly blended colour in the flowers on either side! As yet, they are in their prime; the key-note of colour is white--double Rockets, double white Pyrethrums, and white Pinks. Then, bending down over the walk, mixing in with the whiteness, glowing through leaf and branch in brilliant intervals of colour, are Roses--pink, crimson, blush; Annual Poppies, tender or dazzling in their hue; clouds of pale blue Delphinium, with spires of deepening blue over-topping all the rest. Just midway between the pink and crimson Roses, a Briar, wreathed about with small yellow blooms, hangs over the cross walks at the corner. Masses of low blue Campanula fill in below or between the larger flowers. Right at the end, another iron gate lets in the glimmering of cool shades beyond. A little wren’s nest is there, ensconced snugly in a bowery Clematis, half-way up the pillar; the nest cannot be seen so far off, but I know well how the small entrance hole is quite filled up with greedy little yellow beaks and gaping mouths! The little mother is hard at work for them, somewhere near--hunting the bark of an Elm, most likely. The golden wrens have brought out their families--two nestfuls. We found the nests hanging in the Yews, and now the garden seems to be full of little elfin scissors’ grinders, busy all day long.

I have a fancy to open the gate and go all round the kitchen garden quite prosaically. The other garden will seem still sweeter, after. Here, on the left, is a breadth of wonderful Lettuces, round and close like small round Cabbages, with milk-white middles; and beyond, some taller and tied-up--more like Salad. Near the Lettuces are tall ranks of Peas, hung all over with well-filled pods. I think I like these beautiful green Peas, growing here, as much as when served up in a dish for dinner. There seems always to be something attractive to Art of all kinds in pea pods; from the pods sculptured on the great bronze gates of the cathedral at Pisa, or the raised needlework of the sixteenth century, to the ornaments in the jewellers’ shops of Paris or the portraits of Marrowfats or Telegraph Peas in the advertisement-sheets of gardening papers--these last being really pictures, though not meant so. I remember once being shown a white satin spencer of Queen Elizabeth’s, embroidered in butterflies and Green Pea pods half-open, to show the rows of peas within.

I think there is Beetroot, and a fine lot of young Cabbages, beyond the Peas--in which no one can feel any particular interest; and oh! such a sweet patch of seedling Mrs. Sinkins white Pink. I wish that Pink did possess a more poetical name--Arethusa or Boule de Neige! but the thing is done, and to the end of time Mrs. Sinkins will be herself. Next comes a little square of Japanese Iris, the tall stems tipped with swelling buds whose grand unfolding I long to see. Rows of young Sage plants grow near, quite unlike sage-green, so-called, in colour; and a nice little plantation of healthy-looking Fennel. That is for broiled mackerel; but there is to me another interest connected with Fennel, that lies in a lurking hope, always unfulfilled, of finding upon it a caterpillar of the rare Papilio regina. Caterpillars of another sort are only too multitudinous on the Currants growing up the walls. The increase of them, and of the sawflies belonging to them, is not short of miraculous. One may stamp out whole families and clear the bushes, and next morning they will be beginning again. Yet invariably in the act of destroying there creeps in a sort of questioning, whether the caterpillars have not full as good a right to the Currants as we have--except, indeed, that we, and not they, planted them. But the sawflies would seem to have at least a right to live--a greater right, perhaps, than we to have tarts; yet they are spared none the more for such-like uncomfortable reflections. On the south wall the fruit trees seem to be more or less flourishing. An old Nectarine is covered with fruit. Then comes Apricot tree No. 1, on which I find no Apricots; Nos. 2 and 3 the same, 4 dead, and 5 with “a good few” on it. Then we come to Peaches, plenty of them; then a beautiful dark-leafed Fig tree; and then the Cherries, well fruited and well netted. And so on round the walls. Near the wren’s nest there is another large patch of Pinks, commoner and better than any, with the neatest lacing of purple-madder or lake. And here a powerful fragrance stops one short; it is the strawberries, smelling deliciously. They are littered down with clean straw, and netted close, for the discomfiture of blackbirds. The scent takes me back a very long way--back to an inconceivable time, when this old smell of Strawberries, borne across the hedge in the hot noontide of some summer holiday, was reason enough to set us wild vagrants of the garden scrambling through the thorns to seize the exquisite delight of spoiling our neighbour’s Strawberries--a joy that was never marred, for we were never found out. Sun and rain have both been kind, and this is our second week of immense red Presidents, one of the oldest and best of strawberries--the older Caroline being now quite forgotten. The espaliers are showing plenty of Apples and Pears. Three Pear trees, standing at the four cross-ways, are curiously in bloom; the blossoms are all sickly-looking and undersized, but the trees are covered with them up to the very top, while fruit is set at the same time. I dislike this unnatural blooming, for the mind will persist in reverting to foolish sayings and superstitions connected with trees bearing fruit and flower at the same time.

Among the pleasant sights of this mid-summertide, perhaps the pleasantest of all is the great thicket of wild Roses growing within the wire network that bounds the tennis-lawn on the garden side. The east, shining full upon it every morning, brings forth hundreds of new-blown Roses. Very often, as you pass into their sweet presence from under the Plane trees, the air is redolent of a subtle perfume--not always, though, nor every day, for Roses are capricious of their scent. The yellow-stamened centre of each flower glows like a tiny lamp of gold, and the soft petals surrounding it are rose-pink of the tenderest dye. Were these the canker-blooms of Shakespeare? If so, and if in his day they could be said to “live unwooed, and unrespected die,” surely now the tide has turned, for the wild Rose is beloved of all; while we must confess that garden Roses now-a-days do not always “die sweet deaths.”

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