316 
Old Time Gardens 
Poor Anne ! she died before she had time to be- 
come any one’s grandmother. I hope her successor in 
matrimony, our forbear, cherished her little seedlings 
and rejoiced in the Lemon and Almond trees, though 
Anne herself was so speedily forgotten. She is, 
however, avenged by Time; for she is remembered 
better than the wife who took her place, through her 
simple flower-loving words. 
I am surprised at this aspersion on the Marigold 
as to its smell, for all the traditions of this flower 
show it to have been a great favorite in kitchen gar- 
dens ; and I have found that elderly folk are very 
apt to like its scent. My father loved the flower 
and the fragrance, and liked to have a bowl of Mari- 
golds stand beside him on his library table. It was 
constantly carried to church as a “ Sabbath-day posy,” 
and its petals used as flavoring in soups and stews. 
Charles Lamb said it poisoned them. Canon Ella- 
combe writes that it has been banished in England 
to the gardens of cottages and old farm-houses ; it 
had a waning popularity in America, but was never 
wholly despised. 
How Edward Fitzgerald loved the African Mar- 
igold ! “ Its grand color is so comfortable to us 
Spanish-like Paddies,” he writes to Fanny Kemble 
in letters punctuated with little references to his 
garden flowers : letters so cheerful, too, with capi- 
tals ; “ I love the old way of Capitals for Names,” 
he says — and so do I; letters bearing two sur- 
prises, namely, the infrequent references to Omar 
Khayyam ; and the fact that Nasturtiums, not Roses, 
were his favorite flower. 
