now and then when she walks in my garden.

"Aren't those peonies lovely?" I suggest.

"Yes," dreamily; "you know I can't have that shade in my garden because--"
and she trails off into a disquisition that I could, just at that moment,
do without.

"Look at the height of that larkspur!" I say.

"Yes--but, you know, it wouldn't do for me to have larkspur when I go away
so early. What I need is things for April and May."

"Well, I am not trying to _sell_ you any," I am sometimes goaded into
protesting. "I only wanted you to say they are pretty--pretty right here in
_my_ garden."

"Yes--yes--of course they are pretty--they're lovely--you have a lovely
garden, you know." She pulls herself up to give this tribute, but soon her
eyes get the faraway look in them again, and she is murmuring, "Oh, I must
write Edward to see about that hedge. Tell me, my dear, if you had a brick
wall, would you have vines on it or wall-fruit?"

It is of no use. I cannot hold her long. I sometimes think she was nicer
when she had no garden of her own. Perhaps she thinks I was nicer when I
had none.

But there is another kind of garden manners--a kind that subtly soothes,
cheers, perhaps inebriates. It is the manner of the friend who may,
indeed, have a garden, but who looks at mine with the eye of adoption,
temporarily at least. She walks down its paths, singling out this or that
for notice. She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as one who tells
you an "even _more_ becoming way" to arrange your little daughter's hair.
She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings from her garden, and--last
touch of flattery--she begs seeds and seedlings from yours.

For garden purposes, give me the manners of this third class. And, indeed,
not for garden purposes alone. They are useful as applied to many
things--children, particularly, and houses.

Undoubtedly the demand that I make upon my friends is a form of vanity,
yet I cannot seem to feel ashamed of it. I admit at once that not the
least part of my pleasure in my flowers is the attention they get from
others. Moreover, it is not only from friends that I seek this, but from
every passer-by along my country road. There are gardens and gardens.
Some, set about with hedges tall and thick, offer the delights of
exclusiveness and solitude. But exclusiveness and solitude are easily had
on a Connecticut farm, and my garden will none of them; it flings forth
its appeal to every wayfarer. And I like it