THE SIX OF SPADES. 148 



the bad taste of the owner, cleared, levelled, laid out 

 in an elaborate design, and dedicated to the summer 

 system. In the following year, a sailor-son of the 

 family, who had been at sea as a midshipman, came 

 back from his voyage, and soon after his arrival was 

 brought into the garden to see the " improvement." 

 I happened to be there at work ; and as the beds 

 were very gay, and glowing with scarlet, purple, and 

 gold, I expected to hear great admiration. Only a 

 sigh came from his lips, and I saw in his face a sore 

 distress. Afterwards he came to me, and confided, 

 for we were mates in the cricket-field, and I had 

 carried his landing-net many a time : " Frank, I 

 couldn't have believed that they could have shaved, 

 and hacked, and tattooed, and daubed the dear old 

 place like this. I loved every tree and shrub in it, 

 and I've dreamed of them, and been looking for nests, 

 and playing hide-and-seek among them, a thousand 

 miles away, with nothing but salt water all around. 

 Why, they have taken away the very fuchsia which I 

 saw poor Mary " (his dead sister) " plant ! " 



And now I have only to repeat, before I speak of 

 " Bedding-Out " descriptively, that, while I denounce 

 the system in its exclusive usurpation of the garden, 

 and shall presently denounce it in another phase as 

 a failure and imposition, I heartily admire it, care- 

 fully treated, as an auxiliary grace and gain ; nor 

 would I restrict its application to the grand terraces 

 and the extensive grounds of which I have before 

 spoken. If I may suggest to you a rule for our 

 guidance, it is this wherever there is a goodly 

 supply of the best hardy shrubs and plants, and space 



