The Rescue of an Old Place 



have been forthcoming from the one, 

 while the other has proved an inexhausti- 

 ble resource, not only for our own, but 

 other people's gardens. 

 Mi* Betty For, once upon a time, in the old house 

 which is now no more, there dwelt two 

 dear old ladies who took great pride in 

 their garden, and stocked it well with all 

 the best flowers of their day, and from it 

 came bulbs and cuttings of roses, and 

 roots of perennials, that still help to make 

 beautiful the ancient gardens of this fine 

 old town. They were women of refine- 

 ment and learning, much respected and 

 beloved, and the older people still warmly 

 recall Miss Betsy and Miss Peggy, and 

 the days when the old house was always 

 a sunny and cheerful resort. After the 

 place was abandoned and unoccupied for 

 many years, people felt at liberty to come 

 and help themselves to slips of the shrubs 

 and to roots of the old plants, so that one 

 might hardly hope to find anything of 

 value still existing there ; but when we 

 came to clear away the rubbish, we were 

 surprised to find what a tenacious hold 

 the occupants had of the soil, so that, as 

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