My Friends in their Gardens 
root and wander thence into the neighbouring field, for 
sticks, if planted, would, I think, grow and flourish in the rich 
soil of red Devon. Then Mrs. Moss smiles on her Hyacinths, 
which in handsome upstanding pride fill one of the beds all 
to themselves, blue, cream-coloured and rose-pink ; there are 
no jarring tints here. “ I do not like violent colours,’ 7 she 
says ; and adds, “ They came direct from Holland all these ; 
are they not beautiful ? ” with an innocent pride in them 
which one feels deserves absolution if ever that so con- 
demned sin does. She has Pansies, too, prune-coloured 
and black and golden and steel-blue, and talks, as she picks 
us a specially large flower, of Heartsease and quotes 
Shakespeare : “ There’s Pansies, there’s for thoughts ! ” 
Wood-anemones with their delicately tinted petals are there 
also, and the richer, deeper red and purple hues of the 
Globe Anemone from the far-off Riviera, whence, too, has 
come to this warm corner of Devon the little dark blue 
Grape or Starch Hyacinth. “ Do you not think they smell 
of French Plums ? ” she says, and one knows that, if one 
should chance to dine some evening in the old house, 
French Plums will come up at dessert in their fancy box, 
as of old in our grandmother’s time. “ See my speckled 
Fritillaries, my Checker Lilies,” and she points where, amid 
a forest of green leaves, rise the grey-green swordlike spears 
and brown shaded bells, with speckled throats, of the grace- 
ful and bewitching Quakers of the flower-garden. Close 
by are the Crown Imperials, splendid in red and gold. 
“ I love these,” says Mrs. Moss simply. “ My Annie was 
always so fond of them.” There is no sadness in her 
tempered voice, although to us there seems there might 
have been, for it is long since Annie has gone to the land 
where fairer flowers are said to blow, “ another land than 
ours, even the land that is very far off.” But when one 
feels that every day brings one nearer to reunion, and that 
the time cannot be very long, I suppose that the keen 
edge of parting is worn blunt and the wild and wearing 
sorrow of youth does not invade the soul of the elder. 
“ Oh ! the beautiful yellow Tulips,” we cry, and go down 
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