46 THE FLORIST. 
And thus there arose between these two men, so dissimilar in aspect 
yet so congenial in mind, a sincere regard and amity, which deepened 
into a most true affection, when ‘ the Gardener’s daughter,” quite as 
loveable as Mr. Tennyson’s, went over from the Castle to the Hall, and 
precocious Chiswicks, as time went on, began to drive miniature wheel- 
barrows between Mr. Oldacre’s legs. For the clergyman who made the 
true lovers one, was a true prophet, when he said, “‘ Thy wife shall be 
the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house,’ and whoever enters 
that pleasant home, once called the Den of Despair, and sees the bright 
young mother among her laughing little ones, beholds the realization of 
those other gracious words, preceding the words which I have quoted, 
‘* O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be!” : 
And while the pretty Mrs. Chiswick conducts the nursery depart- 
ment, and every year some “ striking novelty” is added to her 
‘‘ hardy annuals,” ‘‘ quite distinct,” and ‘‘ a decided acquisition ” in the 
happy mother’s eyes, her husband is making admirable improve- 
ments in the spacious gardens of the Hall. His predecessor, old 
Mr. Woodhead, had been a hard-working man, and a good gardener 
as far as he went, but he was, metaphorically, a slow horse, more 
adapted for harness than for hunting, and when he had reached a cer- 
tain point in horticulture, there he stopped in hopeless immobility, and 
no spurs could induce him to charge another fence. I remember, year 
after year, the same plants in the conservatory (ah, those were merry 
times for the aphis, ‘ days of strength and glory” for the red spider !) 
the same designs in the flower garden, the same bouquets in the draw-_ 
ing-room, and the same fruits and flowers upon the table. I think I 
see his Cinerarias now, with their pointed petals (number unknown) 
widely separated, as though they hated one another. The ladies of the 
Hall were delighted indeed, when such flowers as ‘‘ Lord Stamford ” 
and the ‘ Scottish Chieftain” (1 am speaking of favourites in request 
six years ago) displaced those dingy specimens; and yet more grati- 
fied were they, when the summer came, and, sitting upon the pretty 
garden chairs of Mr. Chiswick’s design, they saw the beautiful contrasts 
of modern taste, Flora’s bright jewels set in gold and silver (* Golden 
Chain” and “ Mangles’s Silver”), and set so skilfully that, while each 
separate gem shone in its distinct and glowing beauty, the collective whole 
charmed the eye with a perfect unity. ‘‘ Scarlet and goold, scarlet 
and goold, Tom Thumb and Rugosa Caley,” had been old Mr. Wood- 
head’s motto; and of those he “ bedded out” many thousands, making 
his gardens so gorgeous that strange carriage horses, emerging from the 
sombre shrubberies through. which you approach the house, would 
actually shy at their sudden splendour, and the vivid brilliancy was so 
painfully unrelieved and monotonous, that it seemed almost to burn 
one’s eyes. 
Mr. Chiswick made a hundred other improvements, of which I 
have no time to tell. That damp shaded corner, under the trees of 
“the Long Walk,” where nothing seemed to flourish but obnoxious 
fungi (they may have been delicious esculents according to the discoveries 
of modern mycology, but they had not an appetizing aspect) became a 
picturesque Fernery ; the banks of the lake, which had always looked so 
