A GARDEN DIARY 163 



APRIL 2, 1900 



A T last we are in April. The winter corner is 

 <** turned, and a new era entered upon. But 

 April this year is an incongruous sort of an April, 

 though the incongruity is possibly only in one's 

 own fancy. We are apt to fashion our notions 

 of the becoming, and to expect Nature to con- 

 form to them. A desperately dry April it certainly 

 is. The days are hard, and cold, parched, and 

 nipping ; at night the wind howls, but with no 

 accompaniment of desirable drops. The garden 

 cries to the sky for rain, but no rain falls upon it, 

 yet the only days I have spent in London were 

 days of unceasing downpour. Such favouring of 

 the Metropolis at the expense of the country is 

 manifestly unjust. 



April is such a lovely word, that it ought also 

 to be always a lovely thing. If one imagines it 

 or rather her as she might appear to us in 

 dreams, or an allegory, we should deck her out 

 of course in the tenderest green. Floating gossa- 

 mers would hover around her ; small pink buds 



