DECEMBER 247 



full grown, reject them; if chrysanthemums are 

 bad doers, fling them on the dust heap. Never 

 keep a plant that is not one of the best of its kind 

 for your purpose. It is just as expensive to 

 keep a greenhouse fire going, and labour paid, for 

 bad things as for good things, and the results are 

 not comparable. I have been at some pains to 

 impress this maxim on Sterculus for several years 

 past, and I was amused not long since to discover 

 that at last he had learnt his lesson. I happened 

 to make inquiries for a plant that he had long 

 cherished against my reiterated wishes, but I had 

 not liked to condemn it utterly, as he had received 

 it from somebody as a present to himself, and had 

 passed it on to the greenhouse. 



" What / says," he remarked, eyeing me severely, 

 as though he was repeating an oft-given lesson to 

 a refractory pupil " what / says is that we haven't 

 got room enough in a little place like ours for 

 rubbish. Bad things is as expensive to grow 

 as good things, and I don't hold wi' having nothing 

 but the best." 



I heartily agreed with him, and succeeded in 

 looking, I hope, as though the idea was an entirely 

 new one to me. The main thing was that he had 

 come round to sound views at last. 



Dec. 26. We had a pleasant little party of three 

 last evening, Magdalen and ourselves. She, 

 usually so reserved, was full of life and gaiety, 

 which gave her another charm in my eyes. She is 

 always good to look at, with her tall, lissom figure 

 and beautiful face framed with its bright brown 

 hair ; but she is not always attractive to the general, 



