100 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



and berries of the bryony in the hair of (shall I tell 



her name ?) : if now, grown sober and prosaic, you have 

 yet life enough in you to rise and be stirring 



" When winking mary-buds begin 

 To ope their golden eyes," 



to be the first to view the long-expected blowing of some 

 seedling rhododendron of your own, or some Bengal rose 

 which your Indian brother has sent over 9000 miles of 

 ocean the seed gathered by his own hand in his own 

 garden on the banks of Gunga's stream : if " the pink- 

 eyed pimpernel " in the hedge- row is as dear to you as the 

 choicest oncidium in the conservatory ; and, while you 

 honour " the fruit at once and flower " of the voluptuous 

 orange-tree, you despise not my poor fern, a pilfered me- 

 morial from Kenil worth: if all these "ifs" have not 

 tired you to death, and you are not heartily bothered with 

 my prosing, come, take a stroll with me, while I show you 

 my garden as it is, or is to be. 



My garden should lie to the south of the house ; the 

 ground gradually sloping for some short way till it falls 

 abruptly into the dark and tangled shrubberies that all but 

 hide the winding brook below. A broad terrace, half as 

 wide, at least, as the house is high, should run along the 

 whole southern length of the building, extending to the 

 western side also, whence, over the distant country, I may 

 catch the last red light of the setting sun. I must have 

 some musk and noisette roses, and jasmine, to run up the 

 mullions of my oriel window, and honeysuckles and clematis, 

 the white, the purple, and the blue, to cluster round the 

 top. The upper terrace should be strictly architectural, 

 and no plants are to be harboured there, save such as twine 

 among the balustrades, or fix themselves in the mouldering 

 crevices of the stone. I can endure no plants in pots, a 



