236 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



to the woods but what I see a score of things that fairly 

 thrust themselves before me and offer to blend with 

 one of these backgrounds, and by holding the eye help 

 to render meal-times less "foody," as Sukey Latham 

 puts it, though none the less nourishing. 



Last night when we gathered at dinner, a few moments 

 after our arrival and our first meeting at this cottage, 

 I at once became aware that though host and hostess 

 were the same delightful couple, we were not dining 

 at Meadow's End, their Oaklands cottage, but at 

 Gray Rocks, with silver sea instead of green grass 

 below the windows. While the sea surroundings were 

 brought indoors and on the centre of the dinner table 

 the mirror was edged by a border of sea-sand, glistening 

 pebbles and little shells were arranged as a background 

 instead of mosses and lichens, and rich brown seaweeds 

 still moist with the astringent tonic sea breath edged 

 this frame, and the more delicate rose-coloured and 

 pale green weeds seemed floating upon the glass, that 

 held a giant periwinkle shell filled with the pink star- 

 shaped sabbatia, or sea pink, of the near-by salt marshes. 

 There was no effort, no strain after effect, but a con- 

 sistent preparation of the eye for the simple meal of sea 

 food that followed. 



In front of the cottage the rocks slope quickly to the 



