LOTOSLAND 
That was what we called it to ourselves, Annie and I, the 
lovely sunny land whither we had painfully travelled to try 
and conquer health for Annie, grown thin and white and 
weak. Our finances were low ; we could only afford, after 
paying the long weary journey to the South of France, to 
instal ourselves in a small back room in a dingy faded hotel 
in a side street of the old town. 
And how pleasant to our eyes, as they grew weary of the 
dusty white boulevards, was the garden of Mon Repos, where, 
under a Rose-covered loggia, we could sit and rest, and feast 
our eyes on the grey-blue Aloes and bright Geranium in 
gorgeous mass below the red beetling cliff whereon the 
gleaming pigeons settled, clinging with their tiny crimson 
feet. But it was Roses to me, that garden — great pink 
masses of sweetness, golden and crimson delights, with 
quaint French names, such as La France , Souvenir d’ un Ami , 
Reine Marie Henriette , Ma Frisee , Paul Neron , Souvenir de 
Malmaison; we would carry away bouquets cut with no 
stingy hand by the sweet mistress of that garden. We would 
find her weeding some precious corner, kneeling on a grass 
mat, her dark blue linen skirt daintily tucked up, her small 
brown hands waging war with weed or snail ; or, in the cool 
of the evening, after our hot dusty walk up the long hill, 
how pleasant to find her watering the flowers, faint with the 
heat of the day ! When was it prettiest, that garden ? When 
the old Fig-trees were beginning to bud and the pale blue 
Iris Stylosa just opening its delicate flowers; when the 
giant Violets, “ nothing behinde the best,” as old Lawson 
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