xix RIVERSIDE LETTERS 147 



which grows just outside our garden door ; 

 it is one of the plain green aucubas, a 

 male plant I believe ; it is very sensitive to 

 cold and has its regular degrees of misery 

 marked on its foliage during the cold weather 

 in the most unmistakable manner. So long 

 as the frost keeps off its leaves splay out, 

 large, green, and healthy, a slight frost 

 causes them to droop, a harder one to curl in- 

 wards longitudinally, whilst a severe one 

 darkens and shrivels them in an alarming 

 manner. They recover themselves as the 

 frost gives in an exactly reverse order, and 

 when the thaw is complete they once more 

 stretch out green and healthy. I have be- 

 come quite an expert at reading this ther- 

 mometer, and for my purposes scarcely need 

 another. I just open the back door, look at 

 the state of the foliage before going to bed, 

 and from it know quite well whether to put 

 lamps to my water-pipes or not. It is a far 

 easier, quicker, and nearly as effectual a way 



of finding out the temperature as to stand 



L 2 



