NOVEMBER 267 



I like to keep my own flower holders on a 

 shelf of their own, and am always on the look- 

 out for recruits, although these are chosen 

 slowly, as I choose my friends. There is an 

 ancient bowl of Russian copper-work which 

 has nothing to do until nasturtiuns are in 

 bloom, and then it overflows with them until 

 the last one falls before the frost. There is a 

 tall brass jug for Queen Anne's lace, and for 

 wild asters. Winter boughs of red or black 

 berries go into it, and it has seen daffodils. 

 A tall Chinese cylinder of dull pink and 

 green holds sometimes white chrysanthemums, 

 and sometimes some wild grasses, and the 

 dark pods of the false indigo ; and a turquoise- 

 blue ginger jar overlaid with coarse bamboo- 

 work comes down when the poets' narcissus 

 calls for it, and again when China asters are 

 gay in September. Roses and daffodils glow 

 and burn in tall glass vases, and I miss no 

 glimpse of their stems or stalks, and a coarse 

 Mexican pitcher in dull orange lives only to 

 hold marigolds. There is a little blue-and- 

 grey Flemish mug which never held anything 

 but the pink polyanthus of April, and a tall, 

 flaring vase of Allerdale ware in soft green 



