My New Zealand Garden 61 



spoke of the greatest regularity. His coachman 

 and four-wheeler occasionally replaced the usual 

 equipage, but my uncle became more faithful to 

 the humbler conveyance after the splashboard 

 had been removed to admit of his very lengthy 

 legs stretching themselves out to their full limit. 

 I also remember those wonderful extremities being 

 clothed in haybands, wrapped round them from 

 ankle to knee, or higher in severe weather, and he 

 used to say they were the warmest gaiters ever 

 invented. I saw him being prepared for his 

 outing one day, and thought how clever the 

 coachman was to make so many yards of neat 

 haybands ! He did so little walking, and at such 

 a slow pace, that these gaiters remained in excel- 

 lent order all day. They were rather conspicuous- 

 looking in town, but they always looked comfort- 

 able in snowtime, and, as their wearer remarked, 

 ' comfort was the chief thing about them.' My 

 aunt lived to the age of ninety-three, and had not 

 my dear mother's delicate health succumbed to 

 disease, their eight ages would have formed a 

 record. If ever there were six hale old uncles, 

 free from artifice and malicious microbes, these 

 were they. 



I hope the children's glass of port, which we 

 always found waiting for us when we came down 

 to dessert, may have become extinct now, for use 

 became a second nature, till wine ranked as a 



