JUNE 145 



moniously with the whisper from breeze-touched branches 

 of the trees around, whose gnarled trunks and swollen 

 boles are telling of noble age. These trees consist of acacia, 

 among whose feathery foliage soon will hang the grape- 

 like pearly blossoms ; purple beeches, sombre pines and 

 gloomy yews, now lit here and there with white syringa 

 blossoms. In the sunlit borders, amid twinkling mari- 

 golds, sparkles the blue borage, diffusing an odour cool 

 and refreshing, telling of the use to which it was once 

 put in the preparation of old-fashioned summer drinks. 

 Here and there a clump of golden broom, lavender 

 and rosemary, pansies, mignonette and stocks, thyme and 

 rue ! Over arch and arbour, in lovely disorder, is entangled 

 honeysuckle, sweet-briar, and passiflora. Forgotten roses 

 linger here, the damask and Rosa centifolia or " the rose of 

 a hundred leaves ! " From clefts in the masonry grow tufts 

 of yellow fumitory, pellitory-of-the-wall, and purple toad- 

 flax. With the scent of old flowers around one, naturally 

 come thoughts of olden times ; here little old-world children 

 played when these aged trees were young ; here lovers, with 

 all life before them unfolding like a beauteous rose, sought 

 the cool shade of pleached alley from the noon sun, or 

 lingering by the new sundial, what time fell, the blue twilight 

 enwrapping the world with a divine silence, read together 

 the newly-engraved motto, that to-day is almost undecipher- 

 able : " Time, the devourer of all things." Hard by one 

 may read of those who wandered here in letters of moss on 

 stones grown silvery grey with the rain of many seasons. 



To-day there comes an invitation from a Kentish garden : 

 " Come and stay with us : the thrift is in bloom." It is 

 worth much to see that garden, which at this season grows 



K 



