Friendly Spying 



cloudless overhead, and below me, beyond a rosy 

 stretch of mallow, the glitter of the sea. 



Later in the day I revisited the garden, but 

 the praise which I expressed then to my hostess 

 was not for its noontide beauty as I saw it with 

 her guidance, but for that which, stealthily and 

 unobserved, I had chanced on earlier; beauty 

 bom of a magic hour. 



In these autumn days when my cottage is 

 closed already for the winter, but the garden is 

 still blooming as though it had laid by a store of 

 gold, I like best to think about that stolen ramble. 

 It gives me confidence. Is it possible that my 

 own garden, which is now unguarded, has not 

 needed my protection ; that chance visitors, com- 

 ing in upon it from the roadside and responding 

 to an invitation more confident than mine, will 

 find a beauty for themselves in its haphazard 

 growth; a charm which I myself perhaps by rea- 

 son of my stewardship have but half guessed. 



[109] 



