38 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



its season of flowering none would deny 

 this rose's loveliness, we have hardened our 

 hearts, and have been cutting away the 

 half of it, so as entirely to free the foliage 

 of the pine. There is many a handsomer 

 tree we could easier spare from the garden 

 than the remains of that old Stone Pine. 

 The interests belonging to it are endless. 

 There are the great green cones that reign 

 secure in the widespread umbrella top, and 

 the brown ones that come down with a 

 thump on the grass when the wind blows 

 a gale, and that are good to fill the empty 

 grates in summer, and to smell of Italy in 

 winter ; and the titmice and wrens and 

 robins and all manner of small birds that 

 lodge in its branches, whose ways are so 

 pleasant and past finding out ; and the 

 curiosity that is never satisfied as to the 

 enormous white fleshy grubs we sometimes 

 see them dig out of holes and crannies in 

 the bark, and carry off in their beaks. 

 And the long double pine needles which 

 drop and lie flat all day where they fell, 

 and bristle upright in the turf next morn- 

 ing after the worms have been pulling 



