OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 

 many of the objects which now give us pleasure at Villino 

 Loki we placed originally in that double drawing-room 

 which the owners of the house had left in somewhat 

 denuded condition. 



The gardener of the Barberini Palace kept us supplied 

 with hired plants, Never have we seen Azaleas or 

 Orange trees grown like those, 

 with such exquisite artistic free- 

 dom. We had a Tangerine 

 tree that was a complete joy. 

 This arrangement worked beauti- 

 fully for the first month. But un- 

 fortunately the gardeners, father 

 and son, were professed anar- 

 chists and, when they were in 

 their cups, their ethical principles 

 overcame their business sense. 

 Loki's Grandmother had one 

 day to stand by helplessly while 

 Loki's Ma-Ma was cursed and 

 vituperated in a foam of vulgar 

 Italian for innocently requesting 

 to have a faded Azalea replaced. 

 Not being able to speak Italian 

 herself, she could not come to the assistance of her more 

 talented daughter. . . . And both felt ignominiously in- 

 clined to cry! . . . Alas ! that any spot so beauty-haunted 

 should have been desecrated by such coarse and stupid 

 passions! Those gardens of the Barberini, with their 

 Lemon groves and Orange groves/ the lush grass filled 

 with Narcissus and Violets, and, in the Roman way, with 

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