ec All in ye Merrie Month of May ” 
garden knew me no more. Is it still there, I wonder, in its 
quiet stillness, with its long avenue scented with white 
thorn and eglantine, at the end of which was a little slated 
gardener’s cot under a spreading sycamore-tree, where on 
the doorstep played a tiny blue-capped imp who knew no 
world beyond that iron garden gate, and whose highest 
dream of bliss was a very occasional visit with grandad to 
the “ big hooss ” ? I doubt it ; little imps grow big and the 
Board school will have engulfed that tiny one and planted 
seeds of knowledge. He will have learnt to rob the birds’- 
nests in spite of Government protection, and the hand of 
the modern “ improver ” will have come down on the old- 
fashioned house and improved it — save the mark ! — off the 
face of the earth. One should never revisit a beloved 
haunt, but rather keep it enshrined in one’s memory. The 
gardens of memory they never fade .... (Note. — I have 
been back and found it cleaned up ! restored ! The old 
gardener and little imp gone ; the hand of the “ improver ” 
has been heavy upon it ; its charm has flown.) 
May 3. — My Checkerlily — Fritillary some people call it — 
is out to-day. Checked Daffodil White of Selborne calls it. 
How pretty it is ! I must try and get the white and yellow 
Armenian forms. The yellow Goosebill Tulips, too, are out. 
These last came from Devon, from an old friend’s garden 
where they grew in lovely abundance, mixed up with 
yellow Crown Imperials and purple Satinflower or Bulbo- 
nack. My friend first found them in a cottage garden, and 
was told by the old cottage dame they were called Goose- 
bills because “why they arched their necks same as the 
geese out yonder.” They are most graceful, and, when once 
established, prolific ; when overblown they look like golden 
stars, and remind me of the little wild yellow tulip of the 
Riviera, which has been almost exterminated by the plant- 
grubber. Loudon writes : “ One of the most beautiful 
tulips is the wild French tulip Sylvestris, which is most 
elegantly striped of a beautiful yellow and fragrant white ; is 
occasionally found wild in England.” I have heard of it 
being seen wild in Northumberland, also in a plantation 
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