Hallowe’en to Candlemas 
In India there is a weird Mohammedan festival called 
Shub’rat, or the Night of Record, a sort of All Souls Day, 
when little earthen plates of food are set out at nightfall 
and dedicated to lost loved ones, and candles lit around to 
do honour. The ghosts are supposed to come in the night 
and partake of what has been set for them and it must be 
a wretchedly poor household indeed where something is not 
prepared. October the Saxons called Wyn monath, or the 
Wine Month, and Winterfulleth the Fall. It is curious our 
American cousins still talk of the fall where we would say 
autumn. October, the eighth month of the Romans, is, I 
think, the month when one sows in hope. We have been 
very busy putting in bulbs and trying vainly to clear away 
the endless leaves. 
Gradually the last of the flowers have slipped away from 
us; several successive frosts have mown down China-asters — 
Queen Margrets, as the Americans so prettily call them, and 
Reine Marguerites the French; godetias, those lovely flowers 
like satin; chrysanthemums, delightfully called by an old 
Chinese writer the “flower of culture and retirement”; corn- 
flowers ( Cyanus ), “ ragged sailors,” a quaint American name 
I like ; and rockets, the Queen’s Gilloflowres, and even the 
much-enduring Russian wallflower, Erysimum Perojfskianum , 
or Treacle Mustard, a great favourite of mine. Even the 
holdfast Michaelmas daisy, called “ Good-bye Summer ” in 
Scotland, and the fiery marigold have now succumbed, and 
only a few late China rosebuds still linger. I do not wonder 
that a Silver Marigold was one of the prizes at the Floral 
Games of Toulouse, it is such a beautiful flower to my 
thinking! I love to see a blue bowl full of these warm 
glowing flowers on a dull grey day. In a certain little old 
china shop, where I like to poke around, there are 
delightful bright yellow milk basons lined with blue, and 
blue china tumblers for milk, and blue mugs. I found a 
bunch of marigolds in one of these mugs on a kitchen- 
table one day, and it did look so pretty and cheerful! I 
even found a Blue Rabbit which delighted Boy. Other 
prizes at Toulouse were a Silver Violet, Wild Rose, and 
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