82 
THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
neighbour them with filmy bushes of the white gauze- 
flower—“ bushes,” say I, but that is all too substantial 
a word to stand sponsor to so aerial a growth, and still 
I cannot think upon a better. One may, however, 
more fitly figure forth the spectral beauty of them as 
ghosts of white flowers that have lived and died come 
back to haunt the garden close with misty memories. 
To my mind the annual larkspur, with its spires of 
rich empurpled blue, of rosy lilac and of white, is one 
of my most pleasing guests; but it is the imperial blue 
alone that I have chosen to decorate the moon-shaped 
bed before the little would-be Ionic temple that serves for 
summer parlour here. These almost iridescent blossoms 
I have mingled, and as it seems to me not unwisely, with 
the golds and bronzes in varying dusks and lustres of 
the free-flowering calliopsis, and gartered the enchanted 
isle with a fine festoon of amber and saffron nasturtiums. 
That is my most intimate approach towards carpet¬ 
bedding, and it is good, and very good, but it is my 
Ultima Thule. I shall go no farther. Yet another 
annual that stands high in my good graces is the dainty 
carnation margarita, and I feel liberally repaid for the 
mid-February sowing which has brought me such a 
harvest; so fresh and fair are these Princesses du Pays 
de Porcelaine, with their bright delicate dyes, and 
fringed, spice-scented court-dresses. 
Nor are carnations of the more steadfast sort a-want- 
ing; seedlings these, but none of my sowing ; they hail 
from the potting sheds of the expert, unnamed products 
of his skilful hybridisation. It pleases me better to 
purchase them thus in sturdy clumps with the undying 
