OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



a St. Anthony <a real discovery this) lifting a pale counten- 

 ance that seems on fire with ardour towards the Divine 

 Infant who stands on his book St. Anthony is " in glory "/ 

 his habit golden over the brown. St. George, a fine splash 

 of colour, charges the dragon over the fireplace. It is a 

 most satisfying dragon with red jaws open and a green 

 claw tearing at the lance that has conquered him. St. 

 George's iron-grey horse, with flowing crimson trappings, 

 starts aside and rolls a distraught eye as well he might. It 

 is all in plaster and in rather deep relief. Two tall golden 

 wood-carved Roman church candlesticks flank it on either 

 side, fitted with electric light. 



We have placed square Compton pots with Italian wreaths, 

 filled with palms and flowering plants, one on each side of 

 the altar step. 



At night, when there is no light in the Oratory, except 

 that of the Sanctuary lamps, the shadows of the palms 

 look like angels' wings, crossing and re-crossing. . . . 



But, just as to a Garden there is no endno end to its 

 wants or to our desires for it/ to its phases, its trans- 

 mutation surprises / to our joys and disappointments in it 

 so there is no end to a Garden and Country House 

 gossip. We might go on for ever like Tennyson's Brook ! 

 And meanwhile the year is passing on, in its stately 

 pomp. 



Full Summer is once more upon the Garden. The Del- 

 phiniums are rampant. We are in the centre of a heat 

 wave, and our dry hill-side pants in the sun. At the fall 

 of eve our souls rejoice in the sound of the refreshing 

 304 



