8o 
THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
closes down over the garden, and the pale primrose 
lamps of the tall CEnothera are lighted one by one. 
The frail night-scented stocks give out almost too heavy 
a perfume for my unqualified liking; to my mind it 
smacks over-much of those airs that float over the per¬ 
fumer’s threshold as you pass by. It seems not a little 
odd to catch nature out in ever so small an error of 
taste—can it be that she is playing to the gallery ? 
Perish the thought; no, I prefer to hold that she has 
so over-pampered one with all manner of subtle and 
exquisite dreams of fragrance that nothing but the best 
will serve. 
Farther down the walk comes a divine breath from 
a great bush of sweet brier invisible in the blue gloom; 
and those dim, clustered blots of white and pale rose 
and lavender that glimmer forth from the mysterious 
dusk of the broad border, the delicate ten-week stocks: 
there is fragrance indeed. 
July is, surely, the hour of the annual, of that 
ephemeral company that brightens the borders between 
the passing of the midsummer perennials and the full 
flower time of the late comers. 
Not yet is laid the motley mosaic of the zinnias, and 
the first asters are still timid of approach; they are 
waiting for the mild mists and mellow skies of autumn, 
and their reveille is the robin’s limpid song. But the 
border world of late July is overflowed with radiant 
colour-waves of Indian pink and Shirley poppy, mari¬ 
gold and sweet sultan; it is pied with the annual 
summer chrysanthemums’ dainty, many-coloured discs. 
Mignonette and stock mingle their delicate perfumes 
