112 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 



of Chicago, who long before the gracious art was generally 

 practised in the Middle West, had an old-fashioned formal gar- 

 den, on the order of that at Mount Vernon, some twenty miles 

 out from Chicago. I should like to speak here of this garden- 

 lover's remarkable herb garden. Mrs. King was a botanist, a 

 traveler, a lover of beauty, thorough in all her undertakings. 

 In her garden of herbs were as many as two hundred and ten 

 varieties ; and the list happening to reach the eye of Lady Brown- 

 low in England, the latter at once proceeded to plant the whole 

 of it in her own beautiful circular brick- walled-and-paved herb 

 garden of Ashridge, in Hertfordshire. Thus may the New World 

 occasionally help the Old. Incidentally, one of the delightful 

 things I remember noticing long since, in the garden at Ash- 

 ridge, was the manner of labeling each subject. A brick, laid on 

 its side and tipp>ed slightly back, carried the name of its herb 

 painted upon it in square black letters. Nothing better or 

 simpler could have been devised for such a spot. 



The loveliest passage that I know on memories of the garden 

 is this, again from an English source: "The years roll back and 

 I see myself a child again, walking beneath the exquisite blossom 

 of pear tree and apple, cherry and plum tree, may and hawthorn, 

 lilac and laburnum, in lovely profusion, and again I seem to 

 hear the beautiful voice : — 



Merrily, merrily shall I live now. 



Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 



At sunrise or in the heat of midday, in the cool of the evening 

 or in lovely moonlight, blossom and foliage made fairyland 

 through path and pergola as we passed, the child and the beau- 

 tiful mind, stored so richly with verse and story, with science, 

 and history, and the wonders of the travel of a lifetime. The 

 passing of the seasons served only to enrich the memory and 

 to improve the mind. Precept and example, cause and effect, the 



