160 A DAY OF DISTRESS. 



compare with them. This pyramid is undoubtedly the great ob- 

 ject from the green-house ; but the common flower-beds which 

 surround it, rilled with roses of all sorts, and lilies of all colours, 

 and pinks of all patterns, and campanuals of all shapes, to say 

 nothing of the innumerable tribes of annuals, of all the outlandish 

 names that ever were invented, are not to be despised even beside 

 the gorgeous exotics, \\hich, arranged with the nicest attention to 

 colour and form, so as to combine the mingled charms of harmo- 

 ny and contrast, seem to look down proudly on their humble 

 compeers. 



No pleasanter place for a summer-breakfast always a pretty 

 thing, with its cherries, and strawberries, and its affluence of nose- 

 gays and posies no pleasanter place for a summer breakfast-table 

 than my green-house. And no pleasanter companion with whom 

 to enjoy it, than the fair friend, as briuht as a rose-bud, and as 

 gay a& a lark the saucy, merry, charming Kate, who was wait- 

 ing to partake our country fare. The birds \\ere singing in the 

 branches ; bees, and butterflies, and myriads of gay, happy insects 

 were flitting about in the flower-beds ; the hay-makers were crowd- 

 ing to their light and lively labour in a neighbouring meadow; 

 whilst the pleasant smell of the newly-mown grass blended with 

 that of a bean-field in full blossom still nearer, and with a thou- 

 sand odours of the garden so that sight and sound, and smell, 

 were a rare compound of all that is delightful to the sense and the 

 feeling. 



Nor were higher pleasures wanting. My pretty friend, with 

 all her vivacity, had a keen relish for what is finest in literature 

 and in poetry. An old folio edition of that volume of Dryden 

 called his " Fables/' which contains the glorious rifaccimenti of 

 parts of Chaucer, and the best of his original poems, happened to 

 be on the table ; the fine description of Spring in the opening of 

 the Flower and the Leaf, led to the picture of Eden in the Paradise 

 Lost, and that again to Comus, and Comus to Fletchers Faithful 

 Shepherdess, and Hetcher's Faithful Shepherdess, to Shakspeare, 

 and As You Like It. The bees and the butterflies, culling for 

 pleasure or for thrift the sweets of my geraniums, were but 

 types of Kate Leslie and myself roving amidst the poets. This 

 does not sound much like a day of distress ; but the evil is to come. 



A gentle sorrow did arrive, all too soon, in the shape of Kate 

 Leslie's pony-phaeton, which whisked off that charming person as 

 fast as her two long-tailed Arabians could put their feet to the 

 ground. This evil had, however, substantial consolation in the 

 promise of another visit very soon ; and I resumed in peace and qui- 

 etness, the usual round of idle occupation which forms the morning 

 employment of a country gentlewoman of small fortune : ordered 

 dinner minced-veal, cold ham, a currant-pudding, and a sallad 

 -^-if any body happens to be curious on the score of my house- 

 keeping ; renewed my beau-pots ; watered such of my plants as 

 waDted most ; mended my gloves ; patted Dash ; looked at the 



