Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
woollen gloves, 'and woollen gloves without fingers are 
called “ Doddie mittens.” 
February 14. — -There is a quaint old saying : 
Crocus blows before the shrine 
At vernal dawn of St. Valentine. 
I came across the following delightful statement the other 
day. If you lay two bay leaves wet with rosewater on your 
pillow, and repeat on going to bed the following charm, 
Good Valentine, be good to me, 
In dream let me my true love see, 
you are sure to see the face of your future husband in a 
dream that night. 
This is curious, as St. Valentine was not supposed to 
entertain a high opinion of women, and in his day was far 
from being a patron of lovers. People don’t keep St. Valen- 
tine as they used to do ; one never sees Valentines much 
now, no one seems to send them. 
In Pepys’ “ Diary” there is amusing mention of Valentines, 
and also in Sir Walter Scott’s “ Fair Maid of Perth.” 
The name February is from Februalia, the time when the 
Romans made sacrifices of expiation. The Saxons offered 
cakes to the sun and called it Sol monath, and also 
Sproutkale. It was also called the “ mire month ” ; well 
named, I think. 
March 13. — How curious it is to wake up to a white 
world. I suspected snow when I woke, there was sucha strange 
white light coming through the gap in the window-curtains, 
which seems inevitable unless one has one entire curtain to 
cover all the window. There is also an odd stillness that can 
be felt combined with warmth comparative after the piercing 
cold of the bitter wind which seems invariably to precede 
snow. It must have snowed heavily and steadily all through 
the night ; it is lying thick on all the branches of the bare 
trees and in white sheet-like expanse all over the fields and 
in drifts in the lanes. The sky is a uniform grey-white and 
the Cheviots are invisible. Every laurel and holly leaf 
bears a separate burden of snow, and a dead hemlock seed 
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