THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



Contemplating, then, the stupendous force and pre- 

 ponderance of talk in human affairs, it seems not amiss 

 to devote a few pages to the extolling of the garden's 

 superior advantages as a place for conversation. Nat- 

 urally there are forms of talk not suitable for the 

 garden public utterances, lectures, speeches, society 

 small talk but for gossip, for the confidences of two 

 congenial souls on many topics, for the interchange of 

 intimate reflections, and the musings of two persons 

 content to shut out the rest of the world, for these the 

 garden is emphatically the place, and for these it is con- 

 stantly being employed. 



Gossip is not necessarily unkind ; it may be quite as 

 harmless as it is delightful, and ever since there has 

 been a bench behind a cottage in the shade of an arbor, 

 there have been kindly'gossips to sit upon it. Under 

 the benign influence of the surroundings, both word 

 and subject will tend to be gracious, and gossip in a 

 garden prove one of the gentlest and most comforting 

 of human exercises. 



It begins in infancy you can watch two youngsters 

 at it, tucked close together in the shade of the ornamental 

 cherry, where their tiny doll's table is set out with 

 acorn-cups and seed-vessel cheeses and a finely 

 fashioned mud-pie. The little mothers have forgot- 

 ten their fairy feast, however. They are whispering 

 and laughing, telling secrets, pretending all sorts of 

 magic make-believe, giggling rapturously over the 



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