4 GARDENING FOR WOMEN 



cretion, and being full grown and strong in health, 

 the advantages of a gardener's life will probably 

 attract her. If, during her childhood, she has had 

 the care of a plot of ground in the home garden, 

 or has had bees or poultry under her charge, it 

 will be pain and grief to her to leave these pur- 

 suits and live in the confinement of a town. The 

 thought of a stuffy London typewriting office, and 

 the long, dark evenings in cheap lodgings, will 

 be repulsive to her. She will miss the wide, open 

 stretches of sky, the coming and going of the 

 seasons. How she will long for a sight of cowslips 

 in the meadows and the fresh, sweet scent of 

 gorse. Perhaps, if she is a governess or companion, 

 she may live in the country and have all these 

 pleasures, but will she fully relish them if she has 

 no freedom ? Her evenings may possibly not be 

 her own, and during the day, too, she will have to 

 accommodate her wishes to those of others. The 

 well-known lines of Richard Jefferies will con- 

 stantly recur to her, and she will see the wisdom 

 of them. " Let us be always out of doors among 

 trees and grass and rain and wind and sun. Let 

 us get out of these indoor, narrow, modern days, 

 whose twelve hours somehow have become short- 

 ened, into the sunlight and the pure wind. A 

 something that the ancients called divine can be 

 found and felt there still." 



