Nightingales 83 



In such wise, too, are the flowers of a garden an 

 enhanced joy when one appreciates the living truth, 

 that whilst we are planting and watering, God is 

 giving the increase. 



So I look back along that array of hyacinths, and 

 daffodils, and little blue scillas, which were succeeded 

 and so gradually, too, that the pain of parting was 

 much softened by columbines, blue and white, yellow 

 and scarlet, palest mauve and deepest purple ; gor- 

 geous giant poppies and gay little Icelanders ; blue 

 delphiniums of every shade, with white lilies of the 

 Madonna, and orange ones from the Italian hillsides ; 

 and ever so many more, about which Dean Hole and 

 Mrs. Earle and Mr. Robinson can tell you. 



Back they came every year with freshened strength 

 and beauty, to help the spring, and summer, and 

 autumn, and even winter to be just one bit more 

 beautiful ; back again to greet the sun with their 

 varied colours and forms ; back again to say, " How 

 are you ? " like human friends ; like them, too, to linger 

 for a while, and bid good-bye with au revoir^ for " good- 

 bye," even with friends whose bodies, like the flowers, 

 are laid beneath the turf, has always au revoir. 



Is it so with the little nightingale, whose lithe 

 brown body I still in memory see, as amid that array 

 of flowers she came flitting and hopping after me along 

 the gravel paths ? 



It is very curious that nightingales should restrict 

 themselves to certain counties, never being seen- or 

 heard in some that would seem to be just as well 

 suited to them as those that they select. 



