OUR COUNTRY HOME 



They grow also in deep purple and pale lavender and greenish 

 white; while the perennials in immense long spikes of indescribable 

 pinks and blues, and pure blues, and blue-and-purples, blossomed 

 gayly twice during the season. The Chinese is perhaps my 

 favorite, the color is so pure and it lasts for days. The Canter- 

 bury bells are another joyous family, from the baby harebells 

 faintlv tinkling in the grass to the ten-foot stalks of the pyramidal, 

 blue and white and gaudy. The rampion in the herb garden is a 

 humble relative, and the Chinese bellflowers both blue and white, 

 single and double, carry on the family characteristics. The vero- 

 nica too is a most exquisite shade either in the tall or dwarf species, 

 and keeps green after even ten degrees of frost. 



Fortunately we are allowed to cut flowers from the hardy bor- 

 der, and the Constant Improver looks most picturesque, though 

 quite unconscious, as he saunters down the shadowy walk laden 

 with great stalks of blazing star, or leopard's bane, or the obedient 

 plant whose blossoms stay whichever side of the stalk the wind 

 or the mischievous boy may place them. 



The pergola is a favorite racing stretch for our boy visitors. 

 One, two, three, and away from the stone bench to the goal, the 

 stump at the farther end. The young girls in white frocks, their 

 amis about each other's waist, exchange confidences, as they 

 stroll demurely back and forth: the shadows from the vine-hung 

 rafters touch them gently as they pass. Even our "most grave 

 and reverend seigneurs" I find pacing up and down the moss- 



