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nia Cortright says that they are very plentiful in the dry ground back of the marshes, where the sand has been carried in drifts both by wind and tide. The table and house decorations the day that we arrived were of thistles blended with the deep yellow blossoms of the downy false foxglove or Gerardia and the yellow false indigo that looks at a short distance like a dwarf bush pea. We drove to Coningsby, as I supposed to see some gay little gardens, fantastic to the verge of awfulness, that had caught Aunt Lavinia's eye. In one the earth for the chief bed was contained in a surf-boat that had become unseaworthy from age, and not only was it filled to the brim, but vines of every description trailed over the sides. A neighbour opposite, probably a garden rival of the owner of the boat but lacking aquatic furniture, had utilized a single-seated cutter which, painted blue of the unmerciful shade that fights with everything it approaches, was set on an especially green bit of side lawn, surrounded by a heavy row of conch shells, and the box into which the seat had been turned, as well as the bottom of the sleigh itself, was filled with a jumble of magenta petunias and flame-coloured nasturtiums. After we had passed down a village street a quarter of a mile long, bordered on either side by floral combinations of this description, the sight began to pall, and I wondered how it was possible that any flowers well watered and cared for could produce such a feeling of positive aversion as well as eye-strained fatigue; also, if this was all that the Cortrights had driven us many miles to see, when it was so much more interesting to lounge on either of the porches of their own cottage, the one commanding the sea and the other the sand garden, the low dunes, and the marsh meadows. "It is only half a mile farther on," said Aunt Lavinia, quick to feel that we were becoming bored, without our having apparently given any sign to that effect. "It! What is _it_?" asked Bart, while I, without shame it is confessed, having a ravenous appetite, through outdoor living, hoped that _it_ was some quaint and neat little inn that "refreshed travellers," as it was expressed in old-time wording. "How singular!" ejaculated Aunt Lavinia; "I thought I told you last night when we were in the garden--well, it must have been in a dream instead. _It_ is the garden of Mrs. Marchant, wholly of fragrant things; it is on the little cross-road, b
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