OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



its mossy Apple-trees, its crisp Parsley beds, its tumble- 

 down greenhouses. 



This particular walled garden was a very good specimen 

 of its kind. It was here that our ignorance first made 

 acquaintance with the invaluable Cosmia/ that treasure 

 of the herbaceous border 

 that keeps on 

 blooming in the 

 face of adversity 

 from June 

 till Novem- 

 ber. There 

 was also a 

 huge bed of 

 Salvias, one 

 sheet of gen- 

 tian blue. 



<Why cannot we grow Salvias like that?) It ran at the 

 foot of an overgrown, very old rose plot, the trees of 

 which had developed into fairy-tale luxuriance. And 

 opposite, across the gravelled path, which from old asso- 

 ciations we prefer to any other species of walk, was a 

 field of Snap-dragon against the high wall where the leaves 

 of the plum branches were reddening as they clung. Duly 

 mossed was this old wall, and richly lichened / overtopped 

 by the great trees without. These swayed to the mild Irish 

 wind, with long, pleasant, choiring sounds, the rooks 

 cawing as they circled in them. It was small wonder that 

 I should have felt content and at peace as I stood there 

 if only my heart had not swelled with envy over those 

 Salvias ! But one can't be the owner of an Italian Villino 

 272 



