FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 221 



of pottery, though of a peculiar deep pink, harmon- 

 izes wonderfully well with the barbaric nasturtium 

 colours. There seems to be a kind of magic blended 

 with the form and colour of these buckets, plain and 

 severe in shape, that swing so gracefully from their 

 silken cords, for they give grace to every flower that 

 touches them. When filled with stiff stalks of lilies- 

 of-the- valley or tulips, they have an equally distinguished 

 air as when hung with the bells of columbines or gar- 

 lands of flowering honeysuckles twisted about the cords 

 climbing quite up to the lamp. 



In the hall I placed my tallest green-glass jar upon the 

 greeting table and filled it with long stalks of red and 

 gold Canada lilies from the very bottom of Amos 

 Opie's field, where the damp meadow-grass begins to 

 make way for tussocks and the marshy ground 

 begins. 



The field now is as beautiful as a dream ; the early 

 grasses have ripened, and above them, literally by the 

 hundreds, rank, file, regiment, and platoon, stand 

 these lilies, some stalks holding twenty bells, ranged as 

 regularly as if the will of man had set them there, and 

 yet poised so gracefully that we know at once that no 

 human touch has placed them. I wish that you could 

 have stood with me in the doorway of the camp and 



