30 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



place through the summer, cohered when the 

 weather is damp and when the room they 

 adorn is not to be occupied ; on no account to 

 be used for fire — standing as a testimony to 

 the owner's housewifery and an impressive object 

 to the visitor. One visitor, at least, was im- 

 pressed by such a shining steel tower, impressed 

 with the amount of elbow-grease required to 

 keep it in order, if nothing else ; though that 

 same visitor had the bad taste to admire far 

 more an old stove, exhibited with similar pride, 

 by the host of a little inn on a remote Swiss 

 road — a wonderful stone stove, with the date 

 1700 cut into it, and a history as interesting 

 as would be the experiment (for the uninitiated) 

 of lighting a fire there. A stove, that, to burn 

 compromising papers, to destroy blood - stained 

 garments and traces of crime, while the storm 

 thundered without, as it did that day. The 

 Dutch stoves, no doubt infinitely better fitted 

 for combustion and real destruction of such 

 things, or any other, make no such suggestions. 

 They suggest, besides the pride of housewives and 

 the pains of maid - servants, merely the useful 

 heating apparatus of a comfortable home, where, 

 when the short days draw in and the lamp is 



