A Moonlight Garden 
43 1 
But out of that shadowed background of leaf on 
leaf shine hundreds of pure, pale stars of sweetness 
and light, — a true flower of the night in fragrance, 
beauty, and name, — the Moon-vine. It is a flower 
of sentiment, full of suggestion. 
Did you ever see a ghost in a garden ? I do so 
wish I could. If I had the placing of ghosts, I 
would not make them mope round in stuffy old 
bedrooms and garrets ; but would place one here in 
this arbor in my Moonlight Garden. But if I did, I 
have no doubt she would take up a hoe or a watering- 
pot, and proceed to do some very unghostlike deed 
— perhaps, grub up weeds. Longfellow had a 
ghost in his garden (page 142). He must have 
mourned when he found it was only a clothes-line 
and a long night-gown. 
It was the favorite tale of a Swedish old lady who 
lived to be ninety-six years old, of a discovery of 
her youth, in the year 1762, of strange flashes of 
light which sparkled out of the flowers of the Nas- 
turtium one sultry night. I suppose the average 
young woman of the average education of the day 
and her country might not have heeded or told of 
this, but she was the daughter of Linnaeus, the great 
botanist, and had not the everyday education. 
Then great Goethe saw and wrote of similar flashes 
of light around Oriental Poppies ; and soon other 
folk saw them also — naturalists and everyday folk. 
Usually yellow flowers were found to display this 
light — Marigolds, orange Lilies, and Sunflowers. 
Then the daughter of Linnaeus reported another 
curious discovery ; she certainly turned her noctur- 
