XXIV 



THE Master of the^'House he has 

 admitted it himself somewhere in these 

 pages ~ understands little 

 if anything of gardener's 

 art: that is, of the art of 

 rearing flowers in their 

 proper seasons, in suitable 

 ground and so forth. But 

 he complacently believes 

 that he has an aptitude for 

 what, on a larger theatre 

 of operations than the few 

 acres of Villino Loki, 

 would be called Land- 

 scape Gardening ! He 

 imagines that, had fate 

 provided him with an 

 " estate/' he would 

 have been great at de- 

 vising vistas, grouping 

 trees, laying out pleasing curves of approach, and all that 

 sort of thing. 



At the Villino this imaginary special competency could 

 only find an opening in clearance work. And when we 

 first bought this strip of hill-side, clearance was indeed no 

 small matter. 



With the exception of the terraces immediately round 

 the House and of the kitchen yards about the Cottage, 

 the whole place was a congeries of almost impenetrable 



169 



