ere fussy, troublesome things, as those sown one
season had to be lifted and wintered in the cold pit and get just so
much air every day, and be planted out in the border again in April.
Aunt Lavinia recognized them as the same border carnations over which
she had raved when she first saw them in the trim gardens of Hampton
Court. Can either you or Evan tell me more of them and why we do not see
them here? Before long I shall go garden mad, I fear; for after grooming
the place into a generally decorative and floriferous condition of
trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, etc., will come the hunger for specialties
that if completely satisfied will necessitate not only a rosary, a lily
and wild garden, a garden--rather than simply a bed--of sweet odours,
and lastly a garden wholly for the family of pinks or carnations,
whichever is the senior title. I never thought of these last except as a
garden incident until I saw their possibilities in Mrs. Marchant's space
of fragrant leaves and flowers.

[Illustration: A BED OF JAPAN PINKS.]

The surrounding fences were entirely concealed by lilacs and syringas,
interspersed with gigantic bushes of the fragrant, brown-flowered
strawberry shrub; the four gates, two toward the road, one to the
barn-yard, and one entering the wood lane, were arched high and covered
by vines of Wisteria, while similar arches seemed to bring certain beds
together that would have looked scattered and meaningless without them.
In fact next to the presence of fragrant things, the artistic use of
vines as draperies appealed to me most.

The border following the fence was divided, back of the house, by a
vine-covered arbour, on the one side of which the medicinal herbs and
simples were massed; on the other what might be classed as decorative or
garden flowers, though some of the simples, such as tansy with its
clusters of golden buttons, must be counted decorative.

The plants were never set in straight lines, but in irregular groups
that blended comfortably together. Mrs. Marchant was not feeling well,
Mrs. Puffin said, and could not come out, greatly to my disappointment;
but the latter was only too glad to do the honours, and the plant names
slipped from her tongue with the ease of long familiarity.

This patch of low growth with small heads of purple flowers was
broad-leaved English thyme; that next, summer savory, used in cooking,
she said. Then followed common sage and its scarlet-flowered cousin
that we kn