NOVEMBER 257 



of showing their faces among the ruffling 

 gentry of a show. Creped, cupped, quilled, 

 curled, frosted, inverted, reverted I had 

 almost said perverted the florists have done 

 their best or their worst for the chrysan- 

 themum of Commerce, but there is, happily, 

 another type, which belongs to older, simpler 

 days, untouched by the modern spirits of 

 greed and ostentation, and sweet with a 

 tender idealism. These are the true golden 

 flowers. 



Under sunward eaves of grey farmhouses, 

 along the grape arbours of village yards, close 

 to boundary fences, and in country burying 

 gounds, everywhere where a certain unworldly 

 kind of women yet linger, the hardy old friends 

 still thrive. All summer their grey leaves 

 have grown unnoticed among the poppies and 

 cornflowers, and suddenly, after the marigolds 

 have been touched by the first light frost, the 

 little bushes announce an uncounted store of 

 tight little buds which grow and grow through 

 the long, still, hazy days, as if they and the 

 frost were running a race for some unseen 

 goal. How we used to lean over the borders 

 and watch them ! Was the mercury falling ? 

 R 



