AN ISLAND GARDEN 95 



slender pitcher or bottle of water with me into 

 the garden, and as I cut each stem dropping the 

 flower at once into it, so that the stem is covered 

 nearly its whole length with water ; and so on till 

 the pitcher is full. Gathered in this way, they 

 have no opportunity to lose their freshness, in- 

 deed, the exquisite creatures hardly know they 

 have been gathered at all. When I have all I 

 need, I begin on the left end of this bookcase, 

 which most felicitously fronts the light, and into 

 the glasses put the radiant blossoms with an 

 infinite enjoyment of the work. The glasses 

 (thirty-two in all) themselves are beautiful : nearly 

 all are white, clear and pure, with a few pale 

 green and paler rose and delicate blue, one or two 

 of richer pink, all brilliantly clear and filled with 

 absolutely colorless water, through which the stems 

 show their slender green lengths. Into the 

 glasses at this end on the left I put first the daz- 

 zling white single Poppy, the Bride, to lead the 

 sweet procession, a marvelous blossom, whose 

 pure white is half transparent, with its central 

 altar of ineffable green and gold. A few of these 

 first, then a dozen or more of delicate tissue-paper- 

 like blossoms of snow in still another variety 

 (with petals so thin that a bright color behind 

 them shows through their filmy texture) ; then the 

 double kind called Snowdrift, which being double 

 makes a deeper body of whiteness flecked with 

 softest shadow. Then I begin with the palest 

 rose tints, placing them next, and slightly min- 

 gling a few with the last white ones, a rose tint 

 delicate as the palm of a baby's hand; then the 



