n_, when Maria's kindness
during his illness not only turned him in her favour, but gave him an
attachment for the place, so that now he doesn't really wish to sell at
all! It is this mental perturbation, in his very slow nature, that is,
I believe, keeping him an invalid!

_What_ Maria wants of the farm neither Bart nor I can imagine. She has a
little property, a few thousand dollars, enough probably to buy the farm
and put it in livable repair, but this money we thought she was saving
for the so-called rainy day (which is much more apt to be a very dry
period) of spinsterhood! Of course she has some definite plan, but
whether it is bees or boarders, jam or a kindergarten, we do not know,
but we may be very sure that she is not jumping at random. Only I'm a
little afraid, much as I should like her for a next-door neighbour,
that, with her practical head, she would insist upon making hay of the
lily meadow!

"Straying away again from the horticultural to the domestic things," I
hear you say. Yes; but now that the days are shortening a bit, it seems
natural to think more about people again. If I only knew whether Maria
means to give up her teaching this winter, I would ask her to stay with
us and begin to train the Infant's mind in the way it should think, for
my head and hands will be full and my heart overflowing, I imagine. Ah!
this happy, blessed summer! Yes, I know that you know, though I have
never told you. That's what it means to have real friends. But to the
shrubs.

Will you do me one more favour before even the suspicion of frost
touches my enthusiasm, that I may have everything in order in my _Garden
Boke_ against a planting season when Time may again hold his remorseless
sway. This list of eighteen or more shrubs is made from those I know and
like, with selections from that Aunt Lavinia sent me. Is it
comprehensive, think you? Of course we cannot go into novelties in this
direction, any more than we may with the roses.

There is the little pale pink, Daphne Mezereum, that flowers before its
leaves come in April. I saw it at Aunt Lavinia's and Mrs. Marchant had a
great circle of the bushes. Then Forsythias, with yellow flowers, the
red and pink varieties of Japanese quince, double-flowering almond and
plum, the white spireas (they all have strange new names in the
catalogue), the earliest being what mother used to call bridal-wreath
(_prunifolia_), with its long wands covered with double flowers, like
ti