Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
your family.” “Yes, my beloved family, my flower-children ; 
but they do not need much cherishing in this country,” 
said Father Avelino, smiling. “ I remember in Guipuscoa ” 
— but he checked himself with a sigh. 
He opened an iron gate half hidden under a mass of 
Trumpet-flower in a wall and took us into such a little 
garden of delight as I remember still in my dreams, but 
shall never see or smell again. The walls were covered 
with tangled Creepers which reminded me of the morning 
glories in my old mother’s garden long ago, but idealised in 
beauty to an extent I had never dreamed of, and the Padre, 
pointing to each beauty in turn, named each (its Latin, and 
its common name, if so be that it had one) till I felt fair 
bewildered with hearing of Tacsonias, Echites, Ipomeas, 
Bignonias, &c. &c. Indeed, I despair of bringing the 
beauty of that little enclosure before any one by mere de- 
scription. What does the word Allamanda, for instance, 
represent to some folk ? A small bush with cuplike 
flowers, sprays of which sometimes appear on the dinner- 
tables of rich people ; here it was a big bush with masses 
of flower-laden sprays, little thought of, growing amid a 
hundred others as striking in appearance. In one corner 
was a tiny red-brick shrine, surmounted by an iron cross, 
cracked with age, painted within blue with golden stars, 
containing a Virgin carved in stone, holding the Child on 
her hand !— a thing you do not often see. The shrine was 
almost hidden by great bushes of scarlet and white heavy- 
scented Ixoras, and overhung with crimson Passion-flower 
and Roses. In the branches of the tree overhanging it, a 
tree somewhat like an Acacia, whose name I forget, the 
Padre, pushing aside a bough gently, showed us a Humming- 
bird’s dainty, cosy nest with the little bright-eyed bird- 
mother sitting fearlessly on it. “ I come by every day,” 
he explained, “ so she is not afraid of me.” Her mate, 
like a living flash of sunshine, darted above our heads. 
Across the path ran a little green lizard (“ zanoli ” the 
Padre called it) and disappeared among the Ferns, which 
grew thickly at this spot, intermixed with pink and white 
332 
