Home Life 



asked her the name of some plant which he was pointing out 

 to a friend and which for the moment he had forgotten. She 

 was very fond of roses and of primroses, and there was a 

 fine display of these flowers at '' Old Orchard." She was 

 successful in '^ budding '' and in hybridising roses, and pro- 

 duced several beautiful varieties. She wa« proficient in 

 raising seeds, and he sometimes placed some which he 

 received from abroad in her charge. 



- When he first came to live at Broadstone he frequently 

 took short walks to the post or to the bank, and sometimes 

 went by train to Poole on business, but he gradually went 

 out less and less, till in the last few years he seldom went 

 outside the garden, but strolled about looking at the flowers 

 or supervising the construction of a new bed or rockery. 

 During his last years his gardener wheeled him about the 

 garden in a bath-chair when he did not feel strong enough 

 to walk all the time. 



In 1913, after his la«t two small books were written, 

 he did no more writing except correspondence. This he 

 attended to himself, except on one or two occasions when 

 he was not very well or felt tired, when he asked one of 

 us to answer a few letters for him. He took great interest 

 in a small cottage which had recently been acquired on the 

 Purbeck Hills near the sea, and in September, much against 

 our wishes, he went there for two nights, taking the gardener 

 to look after him. Luckily the weather was fine, and the 

 change and excitement seemed to do him good, and during 

 the next month he was very bright and cheerful, though, as 

 some of his letters to his old friend Dr. Richard Norris and 

 to Dr. Littledale show, he had been becoming increasingly 

 weak. 



To Miss Norris 



Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. December 10, 1912. 



My dear Miss Norris, — I am very sorry to hear that your 

 father is so poorly. The weather is terribly gloomy, and I 

 have not been outside my rooms and greenhouse for more 

 than an hour a week perhaps, for the la«t two months, and 



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