ndless work all winter long, since they need careful
protection against frost in long nights of the severe weather. A
flower-loving woman brings back from every one of her infrequent
journeys some treasure of flower-seeds or a huge miscellaneous
nosegay. Time to work in the little plot of pleasure-ground is hardly
won by the busy mistress of the farmhouse. The most appealing
collection of flowering plants and vines that I ever saw was in
Virginia, once, above the exquisite valley spanned by the Natural
Bridge, a valley far too little known or praised. I had noticed an old
log house, as I learned to know the outlook from the picturesque
hotel, and was sure that it must give a charming view from its perch
on the summit of a hill.

One day I went there,--one April day, when the whole landscape was
full of color from the budding trees,--and before I could look at the
view, I caught sight of some rare vines, already in leaf, about the
dilapidated walls of the cabin. Then across the low paling I saw the
brilliant colors of tulips and daffodils. There were many rose-bushes;
in fact, the whole top of the hill was a flower garden, once well
cared for and carefully ordered. It was all the work of an old woman
of Scotch-Irish descent, who had been busy with the cares of life, and
a very hard worker; yet I was told that to gratify her love for
flowers she would often go afoot many miles over those rough Virginia
roads, with a root or cutting from her own garden, to barter for a new
rose or a brighter blossom of some sort, with which she would return
in triumph. I fancied that sometimes she had to go by night on these
charming quests. I could see her business-like, small figure setting
forth down the steep path, when she had a good conscience toward her
housekeeping and the children were in order to be left. I am sure that
her friends thought of her when they were away from home and could
bring her an offering of something rare. Alas, she had grown too old
and feeble to care for her dear blossoms any longer, and had been
forced to go to live with a married son. I dare say that she was
thinking of her garden that very day, and wondering if this plant or
that were not in bloom, and perhaps had a heartache at the thought
that her tenants, the careless colored children, might tread the young
shoots of peony and rose, and make havoc in the herb-bed. It was an
uncommon collection, made by years of patient toil and self-sacrifice.

I tho