CHAPTER ELEVEN 



THE LURE OF THE LILY 

 "Look to the lilies how they grow!" 



Moir. 



WHO has not felt the lure of the Lily, and how 

 many, like myself, have withstood the siren 

 call in fear of the pitfalls she is said to spread 

 for her admirers? For a long time no Lily gleamed 

 within my garden, and I comforted myself like the 

 small boy who will do great deeds when he is old with 

 the promise that when I became a really experienced 

 gardener I would have them in plenty. 



But what we found when we came to live in this 

 place completely upset all my theories upon Lily grow- 

 ing, for here, in the unkempt dooryard, grew Lilies, in a 

 luxuriance undreamed, successfully disputing with the 

 purple Phlox and rioting old-fashioned Roses in the 

 tangled grass for room to "rise and shine." True, 

 there were but two sorts, L. candidum, growing in 

 spreading patches at the foot of a splendid purple 

 Clematis vine which wreathed the porch, and L. ti- 

 grinum, which in its season sent up dozens and dozens 

 of five-foot stalks hanging out innumerable great orange- 

 coloured funnels in hilarious discord with the magenta 



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