76 ESCAPED FROM GARDENS 



escaped from the old home gardens to lead gypsy 

 lives. 



The common blue Self -Heal of waysides belongs 

 to this same group of garden herbs, and Wood 

 Betony also, though its colonies have overrun moist 

 woods and fields, until, like many another immi- 

 grant, it outranks the less pushing natives. But 

 useful as these herbs are, and even interesting as 

 plants, they appeal mostly to the senses of smell 

 and taste, the eye having little pleasure in them. 



Flower Hat, who to-day begged to come again 

 with me, (having of her own choice forsworn a 

 trailing skirt and high heels on such excursions, 

 thereby promising to be a more serviceable com- 

 panion), exclaimed at last: 



"Have n't you spent time enough grubbing up 

 smelly weeds ? I thought that we had come out 

 to find strayed -away flowers and haunts picture 

 things, you know. Here I 've been sitting for an 

 hour against this fence until I 'm fairly bored with 

 Bouncing Bet's society, and I know the Lilac 

 House so well that I 'm sure to try to close one 

 of those dismal windows that are n't there, the next 

 time I have the nightmare. I don't object to 

 tumble -down chimneys and old stone walls, or to 

 ruined waterwheels and mill-dams, but I draw a line 



