1 A 



"DREAMING BACKWARDS" 



hours. And if the page-turning is by the side 

 of a wood fire as happens on this, the coldest 

 day of the year if it is in a deep armchair 

 with the lamp throwing its quiet rays over 

 one's shoulder, why, it is apt to become inter- 

 spersed with long spells of wide-eyed dreaming. 

 The fire burns with that special clearness, 

 that kind of conscious eagerness 

 which one observes inside the 

 hearth upon a 

 keen frosty night. 

 In the town a 

 frosty night is but 

 a cold night. But 

 here, on our coun- 

 try hill-side, when 

 winter, albeit offi- 

 cially over, is in 

 reality still with 

 us, a frosty night 

 inevitably turns 

 our thoughts to 



the threatened hopes of the garden. 

 \ Now, as one who knows practically 

 ' nought of the gardener's " Arte and 

 Mysterie," my interest in the matter is of the 

 irresponsible kind. I look forward, of course, and 

 keenly, to the satisfying display, first of our sappy, 

 turgid fragrant Hyacinth beds in the Dutch Garden (some- 

 how, the Dutch Garden seems to belong more parti- 

 cularly to my own side of the Villino to be a precinct 



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