Garden Airs and Graces 



They remind her, however, only of her recent 

 acquisition. Have I tried the "pallida dal- 

 matica" ? It has much more distinction. Indeed, 

 she has dispensed with German iris. Had she 

 known that I still grew it, she would have sent 

 me down some roots. And my spirea, that I 

 grow as an edging, with a liking for its little 

 feathered tufts. How it dwarfs and dwindles in 

 her sight. The thing to get is that new hybrid — 

 Alexandria — it makes a better showing with its 

 rosy sprays. Or her eye turns to my columbines, 

 a hundred nodding heads of palest yellow, 

 lavender, and pink. Despite the beauty of their 

 upturned faces, she detects a shortening to their 

 spurs. How quickly plants run out; and a 

 kindly prompting makes her tell me where she 

 gets her seed. It is the same with the sweet- 

 william. She sees that I have striven for a bed 

 of Newport pink; a lovely color to my way of 

 thinking when lightened by the sprays of white 

 campanula and softened by small violas that 

 run below it in a band of mauve. But there is 

 one clump that has reverted, gathering in the 

 greedy way it has a sprig of every colored bloom 

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