“ All in ye Merrie Month of May ” 
that, wherever Purple Honesty is found, the cultivator of 
the garden is an Honest Man ! It was also recommended 
as keeping off evil spirits. In winter the silver seed-vessels 
make pretty bouquets for the empty flower vases, along with 
the dark green of the yew. How pretty the old Apple-trees 
look with their pink buds and opening flowers ! They are 
the ladies of the kitchen-garden, as the Birch is the Lady of 
the Woods. Merlin, that most ancient Scottish poet and 
warrior, describes beautifully an orchard given him by the 
king as a guerdon for his prowess. 
“ Seven score and seven are the fragrant Apple-trees, equal 
in age, height, and magnitude, branching wide and high as 
a grove of the forest, crowned with lovely foliage, growing 
on the sunny slope of a green hill, guarded by a lovely 
nymph with pearly teeth.” Although, for fruit-bearing, I 
fancy very elderly Apple-trees are not so much appreciated 
as younger ones, yet the hoariness of age given by the 
lichens to the gnarled old ancients is very beautiful. I 
heard of a lady who went to Court the other day in a white 
brocade trimmed with bunches of Apple-bloom. It is so 
inimitable in painting. It must have looked lovely if the 
wearer’s face was at all in keeping. 
May 22. — There is a Swallow’s nest over the top of the 
coach-house door ; it is so funny to see the Swallows peeping 
out of the clay-built lumps, all the little heads with open 
mouths ! I like the pretty Roman legend that Swallows are 
the spirits of dead children come to revisit their homes. 
Certainly House-swallows seem to love to be near men. Do 
Swallows sing ? It would seem a vexed question. There 
was a curious controversy the other day in the paper, but 
the question was not settled. White of Selborne says the 
Swallow proper is a delicate songster and sings both perching 
and flying, but that House-martins only twitter. I don’t 
quite agree in this last, since I have been awakened in the 
early morning by such sweet twittering as almost to merit 
the name of song. 
The Swift squeaks and shrieks, whence he is sometimes 
called the Squealer, and the little Bank-martins hardly make 
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