XIII 



LILIES AND THEIR WHIMS 



(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose) 

 Oaklands, August 18. As a suitable text for this 

 chronicle, as well as an unanswerable argument for 

 its carrying out, combined with a sort of premium, 

 I'm sending you to-day, freight paid, a barrel of lily- 

 of-the-valley roots, all vigorous and with many next 

 year's flowering pips attached. 



No, I hear your decorous protest, I have not 

 robbed myself, neither am I giving up the growing of 

 this most exquisite of spring flowers, whose fragrance 

 penetrates the innermost fastnesses of the memory, 

 yet is never obtrusive. Simply my long border was 

 full to overflowing and last season some of the lily 

 bells were growing smaller. When this happens, 

 as it does every half a dozen years, I dig two eight- 

 inch trenches down the bed's entire length, and taking 

 out the matted roots, fill the gap with rich soil, adding 

 the plants thus dispossessed to my purse of garden 

 wampum, which this time falls into your lap entire. 

 262 



