3 2 
THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
of lessons in Japanese flower-arrangement, and was now 
finding her artistic ideas so pruned and chastened there¬ 
by that she could take but little joy in my ruder har¬ 
monies. It was then that I understood her wistfully 
disparaging glances at my great Nankin bowl in the 
garden-room, brimming over with the perfumed warmth 
and colour of a stout sheaf of wallflowers. And if 
Preciosa does not shed the light of her countenance 
upon my blossoming southern wall—why, neither does 
a higher authority still. Had I but been guided by the 
twin voices of experience and superior horticultural 
science, this same south wall might have shown forth a 
row—icily faultless, splendidly null—of peach-trees as 
prim as Sunday-school scholars. Their docile frames 
should trim the walls in outlined pyramids and fans, 
neat ribbons of rose-flecked brown; and, yet again, it 
would not be this wall they would adorn, for “ old walls 
harbour vermin.” No; this antiquated structure, hued 
itself like a basket of ripe, dusky peaches and plums, 
would have given place to a new, neatly-pointed one— 
of sallow grey brick for preference, or, peradventure, of 
doll’s-house red. However, it would seem that the 
acclamations of the great may be too dearly bought, and 
so I please neither my gardener nor Preciosa, but merely 
my own self. I might in due season gather a larger 
harvest of the rose-complexioned fruit, or I might boast 
chaster harmonies of line and colour—but I do neither. 
There will be plenty of peaches to rejoice us all, and so 
a plague on both your houses. Figuratively, I snap my 
fingers at the pair of you, and resolve that none shall lay 
a finger on my peach-trees save in the way of kindness. 
