t everywhere."[5]

[Footnote 5: "Clowns are best in their own company, but gentlemen are
best everywhere."--_Old Proverb._]

GIVE Mother Earth plenty of food, and she'll give you plenty of
flowers.

HE who can keep what he gets, and multiply what he has got, should
always buy the best kinds; and he who can do neither should buy none.

IF nothing else accounts for it, ten to one there's a worm in the pot.

JOBBING gardeners are sometimes neat, and if they leave their rubbish
behind them, the hepaticas may turn up again.

KNOWN sorts before new sorts, if your list has limits.

LEAVE a bit behind you--for conscience's sake--if it's only
_Polypodium Vulgaris_.

MISCHIEF shows in the leaves, but lies at the root.

NORTH borders are warmest in winter.

OLD women's window-plants have guardian angels.

PUSSY cats have nine lives and some pot-plants have more; but both do
die of neglect.

QUAINT, gay, sweet, and good for nosegays, is good enough for my
garden.

RUBBISH is rubbish when it lies about--compost when it's all of a
heap--and food for flowers when it's dug in.

SOW thick, and you'll have to thin; but sow peas as thick as you
please.

TREE-LEAVES in the garden, and tea-leaves in the parlour, are good for
mulching.

"USEFUL if ugly," as the toad said to the lily when he ate the grubs.

VERY little will keep Jack Frost out--_before he gets in_.

WATER your rose with a slop-pail when it's in bud, and you'll be asked
the name of it when it's in flower.

XERANTHEMUM, Rhodanthe, Helichrysum, white yellow, purple, and red.

Grow us, cut us, tie us, and hang us with drooping head.
Good Christians all, find a nook for us, for we bloom for the Church
and the Dead.

YOU may find more heart's-ease in your garden than grows in the
pansy-bed.

ZINNIA elegans flore-pleno is a showy annual, and there's a coloured
picture in the catalogue; but--like many other portraits--it's a
favourable likeness.

SUNFLOWERS AND A RUSHLIGHT.

_Sunflowers and a Rushlight originally appeared in "Aunt
Judy's Magazine," November 1882. It is now re-published for
the first time._

CHAPTER I.

"A MAN NAMED SOLOMON"--JAEL AND THE CHINA POODLE--JOHNSON'S
DICTIONARY--NAIL-SPOTS--FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS--A FAMILY
DOCTOR--THE BOOKS IN THE ATTIC--A PUZZLING TALE--"A JOURNEY
TO GO."

Doctor Brown is our doctor. He lives in our village, at the top of the
hill.

When we were quit