HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



the German ivy, over a pile of stumps that 

 have been brought down from the pasture; 

 under the lee of a thicket of pines, among 

 lichened stones heaped together, is a group of 

 ferns and Lycopodiums; and the sweet Lily 

 of the Valley, — true to its nature and quality, 

 — thrives in a dark bit of ground half shaded 

 between two spurs of a bushy thicket. 



Of course, there are the Verbenas, for which 

 every year a fresh circlet of ground is pre- 

 pared from the turf, and a great tribe of Gera- 

 niums, to bandy scarlets with the Salvias ; and 

 the Fuchsias, too — though very likely not the 

 last named varieties; nor are they petted into 

 an isolated, pagoda-like show, but massed to- 

 gether in a little group below the edge of the 

 fountain, where they will catch its spray, and 

 where their odorless censers of purple and 

 white and crimson may swing, or idle, as they 

 will. And among the mossy stones from amid 

 which the fountain gurgles over, I find lodg- 

 ing places, not only for rampant wild-ferns, 

 but for a stately Calla, and for some showy 

 type of the Amaryllidae. 



It is in scattered and unexpected places, that 

 I like my children to ferret out the wild- 

 flowers brought down from the woods — the 

 frail Columbine in its own cleft of rock, — the 



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