Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



circumstance at Leicester House ; one of the 

 Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the 

 Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that 

 he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon 

 condition that he never marries a Maid of 

 Honour." 



One of the pleasures of a garden is to show 

 it to the appreciative visitor ; and this is a 

 pleasure which we very frequently enjoy here. 

 New-comers usually express genuine astonish- 

 ment at the floral luxuriance, and friends who 

 land from passing steamers are of course pre- 

 pared to enjoy anything. One nice young 

 soldier-cousin who passed by last week won 

 our hearts by saying, "Well, I've never seen 

 a garden before ; they buck about their 

 gardens in India, but they don't know what 

 a garden is." Some visitors are a little trying 

 with their excessive botanical knowledge. The 

 study of nurserymen's catalogues has had a 

 distressing effect. Following the lead of these 

 publications there are people who, regardless 

 alike of poetry and of grammar, will habitually 

 speak of columbines as aquikgias^ of snap- 

 dragons as antirrhinums^ of forget-me-not as 

 myosotis, even of lilies as liliums. They are the 



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