184 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



an occasional rose, even after rose time is 

 over, and as the year grows old we are 

 strengthened and prepared for the bitter 

 pungency of marigolds and chrysanthemums, 

 and far into the days whose morning grass 

 is grey with frost, and in the gardens are 

 desolate 



" Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang," 



the violets are faithful in their blossoming. 



This is the month of the night garden. It 

 is the time for fireflies ; those ascending stars 

 which glow in the almost tropical twilights 

 that are ours. To sit in the warm silence and 

 watch the momentary upward gleaming of 

 these living candles, is a pleasure not to be 

 lightly held. As they flame out against the 

 mellow darkness, the young moon shows us 

 the steadier lamps held up by the night-loving 

 plants that lure the night moths with their pale 

 radiance and their heavy scents. The moon- 

 flower on the lattice is whitened over with 

 broad discs of honeyed sweetness ; the nicotina, 

 a disconsolate thing enough by daylight, rouses 

 itself at sundown, and opens its five-pointed 

 stars with much the same coquetry that a 



