WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 157 



And this brings me to what I see may be 

 a crisis in life. I begin to feel the tempta- 

 tion of experiment. Agriculture, horticul- 

 ture, floriculture, these are vast fields, into 

 which one may wander away, and never be 

 seen more. It seemed to me a very simple 

 thing, this gardening ; but it opens up aston- 

 ishingly. It is like the infinite possibilities 

 in worsted-work. Polly sometimes says to 

 me, " I wish you would call at Bobbin's, and 

 match that skein of worsted for me when you 

 are in town." Time was I used to accept 

 such a commission with alacrity and self- 

 confidence. I went to Bobbin's, and asked 

 one of his young men, with easy indifference, 

 to give me some of that. The young man, 

 who is as handsome a young man as ever I 

 looked at, and who appears to own the shop, 

 and whose suave superciliousness would be 

 worth everything to a cabinet minister who 

 wanted to repel applicants for place, says, 

 " I have n't an ounce : I have sent to Paris, 

 and I expect it every day. I have a good 

 deal of difficu] ty in getting that shade in my 



