292 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



sir, she come, and that first week I thought I'd never 

 stand it, she talked and wrung her hands so continual. 

 But one day what do you think happened ? I chanced 

 to pick a nosegay, not so much fine flowers perhaps 

 as good-smelling leaves and twigs, and put it in a little 

 pitcher in her room. 



'"It was like witchcraft the way it worked; the 

 smell of those things seemed to creep over her like 

 some drugs might and she changed. She stopped 

 moaning and went out into the garden and touched 

 all the posies with her fingers, as if she was shaking 

 hands, and all of a sudden it seemed, by her talk, 

 as if her dead were back with her again ; and on every 

 other point she's been as clear and ladylike as pos- 

 sible ever since, and from that day she cast off her 

 black clothes as if wearing 'em was all through a 

 mistake. 



"'The doctors say it's something to do with the 

 'sociation of smells, for that season they spent in my 

 cottage was the only vacation Dr. Marchant had taken 

 in years, and they say it was the happiest time in 

 her life, fussing about among my old-fashioned posies 

 with him; and somehow in her mind he's got fixed 

 there among those posies, and every year she plants 

 more and more of them, and what friends of hers she 



