308 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



further, and the fact that she is living within driving 

 distance in the midst of her garden of fragrance is 

 a striking illustration both of the littleness of the earth 

 and the social remoteness of its inhabitants. 



Father says that Mrs. Marchant was always a very 

 intellectual woman, and he remembers that in the old 

 days she had almost a passion for fragrant flowers, 

 and once wrote an essay upon the psychology of 

 perfumes that attracted some attention in the medi- 

 cal journal in which it was published by her husband. 

 That the perfume of flowers should now have drawn 

 the shattered fragments of her mind together for their 

 comfort and given her the foretaste of immortality, 

 by the sign of the consciousness of personal presence 

 and peace, is beautiful indeed. 



Your declaration that henceforth one garden is not 

 enough for your ambition, but that you crave several, 

 amuses me greatly. For a mere novice I must say 

 that you are making strides in seven-league horticul- 

 tural boots, wherein you have arrived at the heart of 

 the matter, viz. : one may grow many beautiful 

 and satisfactory flowers in a mixed garden such as 

 falls to the lot of the average woman sufficiently lueky 

 to own a garden at all, but to develop the best possi- 

 bilities of any one family, like the rose, carnation, 



