JULY 177 



of putting off our work and amusement there till 

 winter, when coal fires make the town comfortable. 



The first hot days, and we are quoting graceful Mr. 

 Lang : 



* Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here, 

 Then comes in the sweet o' the year ! 

 And the summer runs out like grains of sand, 

 When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand.' 



Ebbene ! if we can't end it we might surely mend it, 

 by importing summer finery in more liberal measure 

 into our streets. Window boxes why are they so few ? 

 Partly because people who take a house for a few weeks 

 or months often grudge the expense of furnishing such 

 boxes. The mode prescribes table decoration on a 

 liberal and costly scale; many a dinner-table is deco- 

 rated at a price that would fill every window of the street 

 front with flowers ; flowers, too, that would give pleasure, 

 not for a couple of hours to a score of indifferent guests, 

 who care more for the plats than the parterre, but to 

 every dweller in the house and to every passer-by in 

 the street; flowers that would not wither in a night, 

 and add to the morning's mass of decaying refuse, but 

 living flowers that would flourish till the autumn frosts, 

 each green leaf doing its work in sweetening the atmo- 

 sphere for a million pairs of lungs. Be it far from any 

 one to discourage the flower trade : may it long flourish 

 pretty and prosperous! Only, if there is money to 

 spend on it, shall it all be on flowers for a night, and 

 not part of it on flowers for a season ? From my writing- 

 table I have view of about twenty-four homes across 



M 



