
APRIL. 107 
and good and graceful, that I often wish they were 20 years younger, 
and bigamy more in favour), ‘‘ we seem to have all the happiness of a 
garden, without those little vexations and disappointments which trouble 
some of our neighbours. We ought to be very thankful;” and I know 
that she is thankful, though she neither groans, nor squints at the 
firmament, and in fact does not care what I think on the subject ; “ for 
our home is not only lovely in our own eyes, but seems to endear itself 
to our friends also, Even strangers are struck at once with the 
greenness and quietness of our ‘fair ground.’ Our good Duke, 
lunching here in September—it is only in the partridge season that we 
have the privilege of a visit—looked arcund, and sighed to himself, 
‘ How very, very peaceful!’ He was comparing our pretty little plot, 
I fancy, with his grand terraces, and his geometrical designs, his rain- 
bows, his ribbons, and his stars, and I verily believe that he preferred 
the former. Indeed, he confessed as much, by quoting two lines of 
poetry, which we afterwards found in a translation by Mr. Pope from 
Martial :— 
** But simple Nature’s hand with nobler grace 
Diffuses artless beauties o’er the place.” 
And dear Mr. Oldacres, the first time he smoked a pipe in the new 
arbour, seemed to arrive at a similar conclusion. ‘ Prettier than any- 
thing we've got,’ he grunted; ‘If a man wants to know what a fool 
he is, let him go and lay out a garden!’ 
*« And it is a comfort to feel that our old-fashioned style evokes neither 
jealousies nor comparisons from your anxious modern competitors. If 
the spirit of any young gardener is troubled at the sight of some to him 
unknown novelty, and envy with malignant glare is eyeing it, as Greedy 
Dick the tartlets and pies, he is at once appeased to hear that it has 
been with us half a century, and is only annoyed with himself for ad- 
miring anything so superannuated. No one points out, with lively satis- 
faction to himself, those ‘sad mistakes in arrangement of colours,’ 
which your great artists are as prompt to see in others as they are to 
overlook in their own parterres. We are never told that our favourite 
plants are ‘quite superseded, and gone out of cultivation some years 
since!’ And nobody sneers at our boiler, for the simple reason that we 
have no greenhouse, Ah! I must tell you what dear Mary said (Miss 
Susan, you must know, looks upon Miss Mary as a combination of 
Sydney Smith and Venus), when Joseph expressed a wish, the other 
day, that we would set up what he called ‘a bit of a Consartive-Tory.’ 
‘Joseph,’ she said, ‘‘so far as I am concerned, | feel more disposed, 
as I’m losing my hair, to set up a bit of a Wig!’ 
‘‘ Apropos of Grundy, what do you think that delightful elephant did 
last evening. We had a few friends to dine with us, and it unfortunately 
devolved upon Joseph to place a pyramid of jelly upon the table. Carried 
unsteadily, it commenced of course a series of the liveliest oscillations, 
and so swayed itself to and fro, when it reached its destination, that 
poor Joseph called to it in real agony of mind, ‘ Who-a, who-a, who--al’ 
I need not tell you that he concluded the performance by hissing 
violently, when he swept away the crumbs, as though manipulating his 
horse, for that, you know, he always does.” anal 
