APRIL 83 



of my eyes as I hung on the pickets of her 

 fence, and watched her moving about among 

 her flowers. When I have gardened, my 

 hands have been sights to behold, my hair 

 tosses in the wind, and my face flushes sadly. 

 When she held her trowel in her half-gloved 

 hands, no stain of the earth ever touched her 

 little, white fingers, and the pretty crispings 

 of her hair were never in the least dishevelled. 

 Perhaps her exquisite personal orderliness was 

 the reason why things grew for her better than 

 they grew for anyone else, and why spring 

 seems to have stayed for ever near her ! Japan 

 quinces seem always to have flamed against 

 her fences, and kerrias, in her borders, per- 

 petually tossed the golden balls of their pretty 

 pawnshop where bees bartered song for honey. 

 Below them clusters of yellow English prim- 

 roses alternated with plots of the very whitest, 

 doublest, double white daisies ever seen. Be- 

 tween these and the rows of tall, late tulips 

 were mats of pansies of every shade that 

 pansies ever were anywhere thousands of 

 pansies, like and yet unlike the gay little 

 ladies' delights I have been praising. Did I 

 say I loved those better than these? That 



