father's money, he didn't care. He he said, as lightly as he could. "I'm honestly loved the affectionate, unso- off to Liverpool to-morrow, and from phisticated little girl; but it should there to America." never be said he loved her dollars. His looks struck his father as depressed and gloomy, and his first words were a surprise.

"Oh, yes, he can!" The words came involuntarily; she was ashamed, "I know that," he answered impa- and blushed when she heard them. tiently; "but you aren't going, gov-"That's to say I suppose — I meant ernor." there are other people, I dare say, who will miss you."

"I've come to say good-bye, Bell," his father:

If it were spring perpetually, who How would trouble himself to have a gar silly den? When I say this, Veronica smiles incredulously, for she believes

that if the whole world were a garden I should still want to have a particular and exclusive plot of my own. It is one of Veronica's superstitions that she knows every winding and recess of my mind. Perhaps it is one of mine that she does not. But, in truth, I am much more inert than she imagines, and would much rather have my gardening done for me, provided that the result were in accordance with that qualche idea che ho in mente, which Raphael said, in answer to an enquiry as to where he had found the type of his Madonnas, was their true origin. Veronica, who is perhaps no more energetic by temperament than I am, but who is more conscientious, likes to see work being done; partly, no doubt, out of curiosity as to the method of it, but still more in order that she may assure herself it is being done properly. I like to come upon the ground and find the work out of hand and complete. Rather, however, than it should be done wrongly, I will impose on myself any amount of trouble.

Perhaps I should be accused of exaggeration were I to describe the effect produced on my no doubt not impartial gaze by the Anemone apennina and the Anemone fulgens now in full bloom in the garden that I love. Professional gardeners will tell you, in their off-hand way, that these will grow anywhere. They will not; being, notwithstanding their hardiness in places that are suitable, singularly fastidious as to soil and situation, and even sometimes unaccountably whimsical in our uncertain climate. The Anemone fulgens, or shining windflower, is common enough no doubt, where it chooses to thrive, and you may see it in bloom in open and favorable springs as early as the month of February, while, with proper arrangement of aspect, you can prolong its dazzling beauty well into May. But the Anemone apennina, which I have known some people call the stork's-bill windflower, is, as far as my experience goes, rarely seen in English gardens. It used, an indefinite number of years ago, to be sold in big basketsful by Spring is the most skilful of all gar-dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned deners, covering the whole ground flower-girls in the Via Condotti in with flowers, and shading off the crudest contrasts into perfect harmony; and were it April, May, and June all the year round, I, for one, would never again put spade or seed into the ground. I should select for the site of my home the heart of an English forest, and my cottage should stand half-way up an umbrageous slope that overlooked a wooded vale, from which majestic trees and coverts again rose gradually up to the horizon. One would make just clearance enough to satisfy one's desire for self-assertion against nature, and then she should be allowed to do the rest. What are all the tulips of the Low Countries in point of beauty compared with the covering and carpeting of the wildwood celandine? Your cultivated globe-flower and shepherd'sbane are well enough; but they have a poverty-stricken look when paragoned with the opulent splendor of the marshmarigold, that would then grow along the moist banks of the low-lying runnels of my natural garden.

Rome in the months of February and March, and I recollect a good Samaritan putting the finishing touch to my convalescence, after a visitation of Roman fever, by bringing to my room a large posy of this exquisite flower, varying in color from sky-blue to pure white, and springing out of the daintiest, most feathery foliage imaginable. Perhaps, therefore, it is in some degree the spell of association which makes me feel tenderly enthusiastic concerning the Apennine windflower. I do not say it prospers in our latitudes as it does in the sunshine-shadow of the Appian Way. But, in most years, it maintains itself against rude winds, unkindly leaden clouds,

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And Amazonian March with breast half bare,

And sleety arrows whistling through the air.

It asks for some but not too much shelter, and I have had to lighten the natural heaviness of my ground, in

order to humor it, with well-pulverized | spring would garden for me, without soil and a judicious contribution of wage, for fully three months in the sand. year. For I have not by any means But, with all my partiality for these enumerated and exhausted her redomesticated windflowers, I will not sources. She could, and should, do for pretend that they can hold a feather to me in my intra-sylvau home far more undulating stretches of sylvan anem-than I have as yet described. Just as ones; and in April these would be as one begins to feel a little sad because numerous as the pink-and-white shells the wood-hyacinths pale, the red camof the seashore, which, in color, they piou takes a brighter hue and holds up curiously resemble, around my forest a bolder stalk, determined to see over abode. Blending with them in the the heads of the now fast-shooting most affable manner would be the wild green croziers of the bracken; and or dog violets, destitute of scent, but before these unfurl themselves and get making amends by their sweet sim- too high, the sleepy foxgloves suddenly plicity for the ostensible absence of remember that it is June, and dapple fragrance. Where they rule the wood- the lush dingles with their spires of land territory, the earth is bluer than freckled bells. All flowers seem to the sky. Persons of limited experience contain a secret; I suppose because concerning nature's elastic methods they are silent. But the foxglove has have sometimes asked me if Veronica's always seemed to me to possess more Poet is not inaccurate in giving the wild of the mystery of things than any of its windflowers precedence of the prim- sylvan compeers. Moreover, notwithroses in one or two passages of his. standing its almost gorgeous beauty, it Were they as familiar with the seasons calls no attention to itself, but loves as he, they would know that it is be- solitude, secrecy, and the shade. Of yond guessing to say when the prim- course the primroses and the bluebells rose will exercise that sovereignty would be the reigning beauties of the which it never fails to assert over all natural garden. I know a wood of the wild flowers at some period or other pollarded hornbeam—we are going to of the spring. I have gathered prim- take Lamia and the Poet there a few roses in basketsful on Christmas day. weeks hence- of many acres in extent, Sometimes I have had to hunt for them where the bluebells grew not only as even in March. They will at times lush and serried as grass, but well on follow the footsteps of June till its very to three feet in height. The wood close; yet in another year they will has been left untouched and untrodden vanish before May is out. In some for years, and the accumulation of rotfavored seasons they will come and go, ted leaves, conjoined with something and then come again. There is no peculiarly favorable in the soil, has bounds," to use a favorite phrase of produced this fairy world. But there my gardeners, to their fascinatingly the bluebells have usurped the ground fickle behavior. It may please them to entirely, and do not permit any other accompany, and rather take the shine wild flower, even a primrose, to cross out of, the ladysmocks. A twelve- the frontier of their territory. Theremonth later they will show a decided fore, it is not to it I would exclaim : partiality for the society of the dogviolets; and it may so happen that they will elect to wait and enter into competition with the bluebells. Then, indeed, the glory of the heavens is nothing to the glory of the earth. Nature thus rings the changes on her various vernal notes, and does the same thing year after year, but differently. But, in any case, you see,

ye woods, spread your branches aspace! To your deepest recesses I fly.

The wood I should want would have to be hospitable, as many a wood in truth is, to every child of nature that loved its protection. Nor let it be forgotten that this "desirable site" would have its natural orchard as well; the wild pear, the wild cherry, and the

wild crab, lighting up the woodland | one's gardeners and throw oneself on greenery with their gay and delicate the gratuitous bounty of Nature. I blossoms. Nor would eglantine and have heard people remark that the honeysuckle be wanting. On one side Italians seem to care little for flowers, I think I should have a little pasture and rarely tend their gardens with true open to the sun, and coming up to my northern affection. But, then, are not windows to salute me with daisies, and their glowing sunshine and their spabuttercups, and the milk-sweet breath cious atmosphere heaven-sent flowers of ruminating kine. and gardens in themselves? and they But spring has to make way for sum- feel for these much as I feel for the mer, summer for autumn, and autumn natural capacity of the vernal season, for winter, and only one of these knows would it only last, to wean me from how to garden, and it has to do so un- lawn, and border, and flower-bed der rather hostile conditions. Summer yea, even from the garden that I love. is absolutely ignorant of the craft, "Commend me, my dear Sage" — it bringing everything on with a rush, is thus Lamia is pleased at times to and then having to content itself with christen me "commend me to the woods and copses of uniform green; wise for talking folly. Your natural or and, though winter is a great gardener wild-wood garden would pall before in one sense, since he makes untiring, the spring was out. Even the most if generally unnoticed, preparations for indolent of us like to assert ourselves future floral display, he has few flowers occasionally, and I can see the havoc to show of his own. Autumn, I grant, you would play with the free gifts of knows the art of gardening to perfec- April and the generous prodigality of tion, possessing the secret of careless May. Man is an interfering animal, grace even beyond the spring. There and, if you like, woman still more so. is an orderly negligence, a well-thought- In fact, man improves Nature, and out untidiness, about autumnal forms then woman improves man, or at any and colors no other season can match. rate compels him to improve himself, Even to the garden proper, the culti- in order to obtain her approbation. vated plots of man, autumn adds such There is no such thing as beauty unwonderful touches of happy accident adorned. Nature, left to herself, is a that, when it comes, really comes, a reactionist, always slipping back from wise man leaves his garden alone and worse to worse. Give me the hanging allows it to fade, and wane, and slowly, gardens of Ecbatana, and the flowers pathetically, pass away, without any that are fostered by a thousand slaves. effort to hinder or conceal the decay. A garden! a garden! O yes, a garIndeed, it would be worth while having | den! But then, it must be a Garden! a cultivated garden if only to see what The garden that you love is well autumn does with it. What she does enough; but I cannot lose myself in it, she seems to do unintentionally, and in nor feel that supreme sense of satisfacthose almost permanent fits of absence, tion which comes of carelessly ruling a during which, I suppose, she is think- splendid kingdom. I want a garden ing of the past. But this meditative like yours, enlarged and expanded into touch of hers is more discernible in the what Shelley calls a paradise of wildercultivated garden than in the wood-nesses; a garden where the garden is lands; and she makes the wild-wood everything and the owner of it nothtoo moist and chill with her tears for it to be the fitting accessory of a cheerful home. Spring may be a less mature artist, but spring's hopeful and sunny open-heartedness more than atones for some little lack of dexterity.

Again, I s say, were it always April, May, and June, one would discharge

ing."

"There are many such, dear Lamia,” I answered, "in this fair and varied England; and I can show you one whenever you wish to see it. But I fear the owner would count for something, and I must ask his permission before I do so."