OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



eulogies first put it into fashion / of the lectures on Science 

 delivered by this latter/ and of the way in which the 

 spring first shows itself in the lower copses while it is still 

 winter on our heights. The sweep knew a dell where the 

 primroses were always a month in advance of any other 

 spot. He had a soul for primroses, unlike Wordsworth's 

 horrible Peter which reminds me of the delicious remark 

 made to Loki's young mistress by an old pensioner in 

 Chelsea Gardens. He led her to the plot he cultivated for 

 himself, with all the childish eagerness of the aged, and 

 pointed to a single yellow crocus, blown this 

 way and that by the wind, for it was a shrewish 

 day. "Look at it, Missie!" he cried. "It's 

 as playful as a kitten/' 



We do not know at what hour in the bleak late 

 February morning the little box was left in the 

 porch. It was found there by the 

 earliest maid, and brought to the Master 

 of the House with his letters in due 

 course/ a box that ob- 

 viously had lately contained 

 carbolic soap. Inside in a 

 nest of moss, carefully 

 covered with red bramble 

 leaves, was a bunch of prim- 

 roses tied with red wool, 

 and the following "verses ": 



" Beneath the moss and the mast, 

 Though the weather has been wet and cold, 

 I manage to raise my head 

 Down in the Sussex wold/' 

 42 



