9 8 
THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
after its reduction to that formula of dwarfness so dear 
to the gardener’s heart. Whether the petals be reflexed, 
or incurved, or merely quilled—plain in their neatness 
—the aster’s charm of variety is, I think, sensibly 
enhanced by judicious admixture, always provided that 
the scheme shall have been laid with a due appreciation 
of the exigencies of colour. As, for example, I would 
think shame to introduce the note of yellow, however 
mild, into that clear anemone-like symphony that opens, 
so to speak, upon an amaranth almost as poignant as 
magenta, and sings on through tender passages of rose 
and blues and lavenders and whites to rich chords of 
purple and red. No, I have set one bed with the 
yellow, fully intermingled with the snow-white, curly- 
locked blossom of its own stature; while elsewhere 
this same yellow aster figures again amid a maze of 
purples and lavenders interspersed with white; but I 
will have none of it in the great sonata. The Comet 
asters with striped petals, as pretty as delicate summer 
chintzes or ancient sprigged porcelain, have a plot to 
themselves near the grey stone basin of the fountain, so 
that one may upon occasion view their flowery field of 
lightly broken colour through a radiant mist of sun and 
flying spray. 
Along the walks on either hand the borders are 
bright with a sweet disorder of diverse growths; the 
violas are faithful to their posts despite invading hosts 
of the nasturtium, which push long, lusty garlands of 
moon-shaped leaves and hooded flowers of every con¬ 
ceivable variant upon russet and amber, to say nothing 
of those that flaunt it in coral-pinks and reds, amid 
