THE RECTORY GARDEN 263 



in the air. I specially remember among those 

 pillar Roses in my childhood, Chenedole, Ful- 

 gens y G lot re des Rosomanes, Fellemberg^ Aimte 

 Vibert, Coupe d'Hebe^ Crimson Madame Desprez, 

 and Maria Leonida. In an old copy of Rivers' 

 " Rose Guide " of 1 844, the year my parents 

 settled at Eversley, I find a list in my father's 

 writing appended to the printed list he had 

 marked, decorated of course with an outline head 

 in pencil for blotting paper, books, and slates 

 were covered with such sketches as he paused for 

 a moment. The list is apparently a suggestion 

 for the beginning of a Rose garden. I wonder 

 how v many of these varieties would it be possible 

 to find nowadays ? In later years many dwarf 

 Roses were added to that early list, and great 

 was my father's delight over Victor Verdier^ 

 which was one of a dozen from Walters' of 

 Exeter, which our dear parlour-maid, Susan 

 Blackmore, brought him on her return from a 

 holiday in her native Devon. She lived in 

 our family for forty years, ruling us all with 

 dignified and severe devotion, and died in my 

 sister's service as a woman of over seventy. 



