A Little Maryland Garden 161 
up room that might be given to bright 
flowers. 
Another pronounced aversion is for the 
ampelopsis vine, which smothers houses out 
of all individuality, and in which chattering 
sparrows make morning and evening hideous. 
It seems as though most people, beginning 
life together with love and a cottage, feel in- 
complete unless the cottage is covered with 
a solid mass of green, exactly like all the 
other cottages on the street. There is a 
time, when the vine first creeps over the 
wall, with a fine tracery of delicate leaves 
and reaching tendrils, when it is lovely; and 
if it could be frozen into immobility at this 
stage it would be perfect. But this soon gives 
way to a uniform mass of overlapping leaves, 
covering the wall without a break, as mono- 
tonous and uninteresting as the red brick 
which it covers. There seems to be too 
little appreciation of the vine in its graceful 
form, in wreathing festoons and graceful 
drapery. The wild grape with its handsome 
foliage and play of light and shade, or the 
B® 4 
