10 APRIL 



gardeners, and who is here, weeding, pulling up, 

 cutting down, and moving plants under my direc- 

 tions ; and this employment is too fascinating to 

 leave off; especially as in another hour the 

 gardeners themselves will have returned, and I 

 have a lot for them to do to-day. 



Across the path that divides this Chamber of 

 Horrors from the pot garden, there stand, enjoying 

 morning sun only, 350 pots of Eucharis Amazonica. 

 In the beginning of February these lilies burst 

 suddenly out into a mass of sweet, white blooms. 

 It was quite worth while to take a chair and book 

 down there, and sit beside them, just to inhale 

 their exquisite odour. It looked like a snow-field. 



Then came the pink and red Amaryllis. There 

 are about 300 of these in pots, and crowds in the 

 earth also in different places. These shoot up from 

 the middle of their evergreen, ribbon-like leaves, 

 with their lovely blossoms 3 or 4 inches across. 

 There is another variety whose leaves are deciduous, 

 and one forgets all about it, or where it was planted, 

 till in May one is mightily astonished to see a long, 

 green stalk emerging from the border, where the 

 earth is baked as hard as a brick and looks as if a 



