AUTUMN IN THE GARDEN 181 



A garden without the richest colouring in 

 autumn is unworthy of the name, but, alas 1 some- 

 times before September has said "good-bye" to 

 us the beauty of the flowers has gone ; and this 

 reminds me, in writing of the autumn garden, of 

 some words of " E. V. B." — the Hon. Mrs. Boyle, 

 with whom a few years ago I spent some pleasant 

 hours at Hestercombe — in her charming book, A 

 Garden of Pleasure'. "How surely does autumn 

 give a tinge of melancholy to a garden reverie ! 

 and how the feeling grows with age 1 But it is not 

 like the ideal sorrowfulness of youth, that dwells 

 so marvellous sweet in our remembrance. It is 

 simply that we listen now to the shortened step of 

 the years to come ; it is only that now we feel and 

 we know how for us the days are numbered that 

 will bring back the flowers in their season. Even 

 the lilac bunches of autumn crocus, both double 

 and single, which arise here and there on the bare 

 earth without any green about them, do not make 

 much cheer. My pleasant paths are all forlorn ; 

 the singing-birds are flown or dead, and unbroken 

 silence reigns in the unleaved thickets they once 

 loved so well. There are no delightful surprises 

 now ; quite plainly and bare of all disguise we see 

 the empty nest in the fork of many a leafless 



