FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 223 



but they are so delicately tinted and the petals so grace- 

 fully winged that it seemed like picking handfuls of 

 butterflies. 



Maria Maxwell has shown me how, by looking at the 

 stamens, I can tell if the flower is newly opened, for by 

 picking only such they will last two full days. How 

 lasting are youthful impressions! She remembers all 

 these things, though she has had no very own garden 

 these ten years and more. Will the Infant remember 

 creeping into my cot in these summer mornings, cuddling 

 and being crooned to like a veritable nestling, until her 

 father gains sufficient consciousness to take his turn 

 and delight her by the whistled imitation of a few simple 

 bird songs? Yes, I think so, and I would rather give 

 her this sort of safeguard to keep off harmful thoughts 

 and influences than any worldly wisdom. 



The poppies I arranged in my smallest frosted-white 

 and cut-glass vases in two rows on the mantel- shelf, 

 before the quaint old oblong mirror, making it look like 

 a miniature shrine. Celia Thaxter had this way of 

 using them, if I remember rightly, the reflection in the 

 glass doubling the beauty and making the frail things 

 seem alive ! 



For the library, where oak and blue are the prevailing 

 tints, I filled a silver tankard with a big bunch of blue 



