Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
shore are in equal danger, when the trees bend and sway 
like rushes, and great limbs snap like matches, and come 
crashing down. I saw to-day a terrific sight. Standing in 
the bay-window of my beloved Winter Parlour, I actually 
saw the dear old ivied Beech, who always looked so steadfast 
in his might, bend, waver, and fall right over towards me ! 
It looked just as if it was going to fall on the house. I 
shrieked, and even as I did so it crashed down, a mighty 
wreck, just short of the house, prone on the laurel-covered 
bank, with its branched top right into the Rose-garden ! 
Our view has been so obscured with tree hitherto, it has left 
such a gap, it seems as if a curtain had been drawn aside. 
I feel positively chilled as I look abroad, over the wide 
stretch of brown fields right away to the Cheviots. 
I went down afterwards for a nearer view ; the giant was 
a sad sight lying prostrate. From the wretched remnant of 
the burly trunk still upstanding fluttered a few rags of ivy, 
but I saw no Squirrels or Owls about, though a Squirrel’s old 
nest was found later, in amongst the upper branches. I 
hope the poor woodlanders were all out for the day when 
the catastrophe happened. I never saw anything like the 
thickness of the ivy stem ; it was like a great boa-constrictor 
wound round the trunk of the Beech. A woodman was 
sent for, and we have been very busy dividing up the wreck 
so as to clear the poor Lily-garden, which at present looks 
like the picture in the old children’s storybook of Jack’s 
garden when the beanstalk came crashing down with the 
giant’s weight. Luckily there are no flowers yet above 
ground to be the worse of the encumbrance which litters 
the dear little garden, though in the plantation the Snow- 
drops are already showing tiny little teeth among the dead 
leaves. I gathered a lovely bunch of French Marigolds to- 
day, looking like golden stars in the flowerless border. 
There are a few flowers still in the Pansy-bed, and if I could 
bring myself to rob the forlorn-looking bare garden I might 
pick a bouquet of white Spur-flowers. I have just been 
planting a number of Acorns, which I hope will grow. I 
want to try having a bed of Geraniums with a border of tiny 
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