162 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAEDEN. 



calceolaria's golden sheen ; the clear bright yellow of 

 the pansy and marigold ; the deeper hues of the 

 gazania, tagetes, and tropaeolum; the varied tints of 

 the petunia, from white to velvety purple, pale pink to 

 dark maroon, how could they look on these jewels, 

 in their setting of emerald, this exquisite picture, 

 framed by dark glossy evergreens, or (as at beautiful 

 Hardwicke) by tall graceful arches of honeysuckle and 

 the climbing rose, and not confess that the scene 

 before them, as a brilliant display of floral beauty, 

 outshone their brightest dreams ? 



" Will you be good enough," I hear it said, in 

 satirical tones, by some resolute opponent of the 

 summer system, "to invite your gardening grand- 

 fathers to stay the night ; and will you oblige me by 

 supposing that, while their ghostships are in bed, one 

 of those little incidents, not uncommon in this country, 

 which go by the name of thunderstorms, shall ' drench 

 our steeples, drown our cocks,' and play upon your 

 bedding-out? And will you favour me with your 

 opinion as to what those ancient florists would say, 

 when they looked out o' window next morning, and 

 saw how your fine-weather sailors had weathered the 

 storm how, with heads drooping, and all the colour 

 gone from, their faces, they crouched, limp and 

 draggled, naked and crippled, wrecked and broken- 

 hearted, gazing in mute despair upon all their torn 

 and faded finery, floating upon the green sea around?" 



I must honestly answer, that if the beauty of 

 summer bedding-out depended upon the flowers to 

 which I have referred, these ghostly gardeners would 

 say that they preferred a thousandfold the simpler 



