THE PRIVATE GARDEN 



high, nor the hours of a day's work too many or 

 too few, which follow that "sUding scale." How 

 much our garden contest may do of this sort 

 for that cottage on the hill we have yet to know; 

 last year was its first in the competition. But 

 it has shown the ambition to enter the lists, 

 and a number that promised no more at the 

 outset have since won prizes. One such was so 

 beautiful last year that strangers driving by 

 stopped and asked leave to dismount and en- 

 joy a nearer view. 



A certain garden to which we early awarded 

 a high prize was, and yet remains, among the 

 loveliest in Northampton. Its house stands 

 perhaps seventy feet back from the public way 

 and so nearly at one edge of its broad lot that 

 all its exits and entrances are away from that 

 side and toward the garden. A lawn and front 

 bordered on side by loose hedges of Regel's 

 privet and Thunberg's barberrj^ and with only 

 one or two slim trees of delicate foliage near 

 its street line, rises sHghtly from the sidewalk 

 to the house in a smooth half wave that never 

 sinks below any level it has attained and yet 



139 



