82 MAY 



somer it is than spring-sown stuff. Clarkia and 

 godetia under similar conditions are also doing well. 

 Viola cormita in two or three shades a flower 

 which, as a carpet plant properly placed under 

 things of upright growth, I regard as one of the 

 prettiest in the garden is looking charming, as it 

 always does at this time. Early in July, when it 

 gets a little shabby, we shall clip it over, and it will 

 bloom again in the autumn. Nearly all the tufts 

 were killed by the heat last summer, but it is a 

 thing impossible to get rid of, and it is rapidly 

 forming new masses from self-sown seed. These 

 young plants should bloom in September or even 

 sooner. 



I have a friend called Petunia who lives not 

 very far away, and comes often to see me. She 

 is young and pretty and altogether charming, 



but Well, I have noticed that a "but" 



generally appears in a woman's description of her 

 best friends, and there is no need to particularise. 

 The " but " in Petunia's case is not entirely irrelevant 

 to her method of mismanaging her love affairs, 

 which she seems to have accomplished of late with 

 complete success. Yet while willing and even 

 anxious to seek sympathy, she deprecates the 

 smallest approach to advice from her confidants, 

 of whom she has more than one or two. More- 

 over, as she never succeeds in expressing her 

 position very clearly, always keeping in reserve 

 some fact which might damage her in the opinion 

 of her listener, it is sometimes a little difficult to 

 follow her story and to share her point of view. It 

 seems as if she has not strength to carry alone the 



