The Happy Garden 



is gay with wine-coloured wallflowers and forget- 

 me-nots, and in the autumn, when they are almost 

 past, pink and purple asters, spurred on by the 

 beauty that has gone before them, make new glory 

 to wipe out the memory of the old. 



Behind the sweet peas are the strawberry beds, 

 and the currants, black, red, and white, and goose- 

 berries and raspberries, all caged in from the birds. 

 It is not good to have them altogether enclosed, 

 for the birds cannot devour the harmful insects, 

 and therefore, at intervals, there are gaps in the 

 wire roofs, which are covered with netting when 

 the fruit is ripening. The cage is over six feet high, 

 so that any ordinary person can walk freely and 

 gorge strawberries in comfort. 



For Jane's benefit the strawberry season shall 

 be turned on, and she shall be left to feast, while 

 I recall how Hookie, still a baby, before the robus- 

 tious boy began to grow in him, sat in an apple 

 tree in full blossom, half fearful, and half proud, 

 and clapped his hands and delivered himself of his 

 first poem : 



" Over my shory shoulder 

 The parrots and bullfinches fly : — 



a fragment which another infant completed : 



The bullfinches are the bolder, 

 The jmrrots are strangely shy." 



78 



