THE JOY OF A GARDEN. 
77 
and dresses up their roots, and brings them into the light 
again, and gives them but little water at first, and this 
year they will grow as bravely as ever, filling the whole 
of her window with a leafy screen, and blooming to a 
certainty on Midsummer-day. Her heliotrope is just as 
old, and is grown like a shrub, and she says it always 
comes into bloom about Lammas-day, and she half 
believes that the boys make their oyster-shell grottoes on 
that day, in celebration of the opening of her sweet- 
scented flowers. God has not left her utterly desolate ; 
she can still read her large-print Bible, and, as long as 
she can keep on her feet, those precious flowers will 
sweeten her little room with their fragrance, and shed a 
soft light on her pathway to the grave. Look at her 
prying into the buds to see if any thing has come to hurt 
her darlings. Her white cap, and twinkling eye, and 
grey hair, make her beautiful as the sunlight glances on 
her, and one might believe her to be an angel tarrying 
for but an hour on this side of heaven, beguiled by the 
love of something so suggestive of her proper home— 
and she is one. You can almost see the glory of a 
better world shining on her brow as it did on the brow 
of Stephen. Her stay beside those flow 7 ers will not be 
long; and others like them will beautify her grave. 
But who can tell the joy of a garden? Who but those 
wdio know, through sweet experience, can realize, either 
by remembrance or anticipation, the hearty fulness of 
life in which a gardeners happiness consists ? Take the 
year round, with all its lights and shadows, and what 
pursuit can offer so many joyous hopes, so many glad 
realizations, so many exquisite pleasures ! Look at the 
