344 MORE POT-POURRI 



drove up to Monte Sennaria, fifteen miles or so on the 

 Bologna Koad. This took us past the villa we lived in as 

 children. I found that all had been much changed and 

 grown up. Even the road which in my day passed 

 between walls out of which grew the large, handsome 

 house was now turned to the left, and the space between 

 it and the villa thickly planted with evergreens, thus 

 entirely depriving it of its original Italian character. 



I can remember now the mysterious tremble with 

 which I used sometimes to lie awake at night and hear 

 the tinkle of the bell of the dead-cart as it passed under the 

 windows up to the cemetery on the hill. I had been told 

 no coffins were used, and I always thought some one 

 might wake during the long drive. The morning we 

 went to Monte Sennaria the weather was lovely, and, 

 though rather hot on starting, it soon got delicious ; and 

 as we reached the higher ground many spring flowers 

 remained. I particularly noticed quantities of the blue 

 Italian Borage, growing small and low on dried banks and 

 a sheet of gentian-blue bloom. Grown in good soil in 

 English flower borders it is coarse and leafy, and flowers 

 but little ; at least, that is my experience. I shall find it a 

 most valuable plant in Surrey if it will grow in poor, dry 

 places. Last autumn, after I got home, I immediately 

 moved some of my plants of Italian Borage to the driest, 

 sunniest spot in the garden. I shall see if it will flower as 

 abundantly as it did in Italy. The Eush or Italian Broom 

 ought to be sown every year in light soils, as it is such 

 a useful July-flowering plant, and rarely seen not being 

 quite hardy in Surrey. 



The villas of the rich that I saw round Florence and, 

 of course, there are a great many which I did not see are 

 to be recognised by the fact that the Vine and Olive, Lemon 

 and Pomegranate, Fig and Mulberry, are turned out for the 

 planting of Laurels, Deodars and other conifers, Ehodo- 



