OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



is a time of hectic preparation / of pleasurable brain-racking 

 over the suitability of gifts / of endless tying up of parcels 

 for foreign and home dispatch. We decorate the Villino 

 with round compact Holly-wreaths, which Adam makes 

 with rare raste and adroitness. Never was such a year as 

 the last for Hollies / and some of the trees were still scarlet 

 with them in the late Spring. 



As for Juvenal, he shows a recrudescence of genius in the 

 devising of table decoration with unthought-of evergreens / 

 with rich-toned leaves in the sear and the brown and 

 purpling hues of Winter, brightened with an astonishing 

 variety of haws, hips, and berries. 



In the little Chapel a crib is built up in a stone manger 

 brought from Rome. Therein lies the Italian Bambino, 

 purchased two generations ago by a dear one who has 

 now gone from us. It is the quaintest little wax figure 

 imaginable, with its painted red curls and one wax foot 

 uplifted in the act of kicking. The story goes that the 

 original much venerated image in a certain Roman church, 

 the object of yearly pilgrimages, was purloined, or for 

 some reason moved to another Church, to the woe and 

 indignation of the faithful of the district. But on the first 

 Christmas night after this translation, a loud knocking was 

 heard at the door of the original Church, and the small 

 figure was discovered, kicking with all its might for re- 

 admittance. Captured and carried in with devotion and 

 joy, it was re-established with much pomp in its old 

 quarters, but ever after remained with a little kicking leg in 

 the air! 



Our Crib, surrounded with Roman Hyacinths and White 

 Narcissus and Primulas, is fragrant and poetic / but we do 

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