THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 
Contemplating, then, the stupendous force and pre¬ 
ponderance of talk in human affairs, it seems not amiss 
to devote a few pages to the extolling of the garden’s 
superior advantages as a place for conversation. Nat¬ 
urally there are forms of talk not suitable for the 
garden—public utterances, lectures, speeches, society 
small talk—but for gossip, for the confidences of two 
congenial souls on many topics, for the interchange of 
intimate reflections, and the musings of two persons 
content to shut out the rest of the world, for these the 
garden is emphatically the place, and for these it is con¬ 
stantly being employed. 
Gossip is not necessarily unkind; it may be quite as 
harmless as it is delightful, and ever since there has 
been a bench behind a cottage in the shade of an arbor, 
there have been kindly gossips to sit upon it. Under 
the benign influence of the surroundings, both word 
and subject will tend to be gracious, and gossip in a 
garden prove one of the gentlest and most comforting 
of human exercises. 
It begins in infancy—you can watch two youngsters 
at it, tucked close together in the shade of the ornamental 
cherry, where their tiny doll’s table is set out with 
acorn-cups and seed-vessel cheeses and a finely 
fashioned mud-pie. The little mothers have forgot¬ 
ten their fairy feast, however. They are whispering 
and laughing, telling secrets, pretending all sorts of 
magic make-believe, giggling rapturously over the 
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