FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 209 



the sweet peas or did Barney ? Did you cram them hap- 

 hazard into the first thing that came handy (probably 

 that awful bowl decorated in ten discordant colours 

 and evidently a wedding present, for such atrocities 

 never find any other medium of circulation) ? Or did 

 you separate them nicely, and arrange the pink and sal- 

 mon peas with the lavender in that plain-coloured 

 Sevres vase that is unusually accommodating in the 

 matter of water, then putting the gay colours in the blue- 

 and-white Delft bowl and the duller ones in cut glass to 

 give them life? Having plenty, did you change them 

 every other day, or the moment the water began to look 

 milky, or did you leave them until the flowers clung to- 

 gether in the first stages of mould ? Meanwhile, the un- 

 gathered flowers on the vines were seriously developing 

 peas and shortening their stems to be better able to bear 

 their weight. And, Mary Penrose," here Maria 

 positively glared at me as if I had been a primary pupil 

 in the most undesirable school of her route who was both 

 stone deaf and afflicted with catarrh, "did you wash out 

 your jars and vases with a mop every time you changed 

 the flowers, and wipe them on a towel separate from 

 the ones used for the pantry glass ? No, you never did ! 

 You tipped the water out over there at the end of the 

 piazza by the honeysuckles, because you couldn't quite 



