Part 34 (1/2)

But where was his great-coat?--

He got very damp--and there was no time to hang him out to dry!

Tell him with my love--I have been nailing up the children in the way they should go--and have made a real hedge of cuttings!

I wish the Weeding Woman could see my old Yorks.h.i.+re ”rack.” It and its china always lend themselves to flowers, I think. The old English coffee-cups are full of primroses. In a madder-crimson Valery pot are Lent lilies--and the same in a peac.o.c.k-blue fellow of a pinched and selfish shape. The white violets are in a pale grey-green jar (a miniature household jar) of Ma.r.s.eilles pottery. The polyanthuses singularly become a pet _j.a.p_ pot of mine of pale yellow with white and black design on it--and a gold dragon--and a turquoise-coloured lower rim.

I am VERY flowery. I must catch the post. I do hope my Head Gardener is not in bed with rheumatic fever!!!! I trust your poor back is rather easier?

Please most gratefully thank the girls for me.

Yours gratefully and affectionately, J.H.E.

TO THE REV. J. GOING.

All Fools, 1884.

MY DEAR HEAD GARDENER,

You are too good, and--as to the confusion of one's principles is sometimes the case--your virtues encourage my vices. You make me greedy when I ought only to be grateful.

I've been too busy to write at once, and also somewhat of set purpose abstained--for those bitter winds and hard-caked soil were not suited for transplantation, and still less fit for you to be playing the part of Honest Root-gatherer without your Cardigan Waistcoat!!!!

To-day

”a balmy south wind blows.”

I feel convinced some poet says so. If not I do, and it's a fact.

Moreover by a superhuman--or anyhow a super-frail-feminine--effort last Sat.u.r.day as ever was I took up all that remained of the cabbage garden--spread the heap of ashes, marked out another path by rule of line (not of thumb, as I planted those things you took up and _set straight_!), made my new walk, and edged it with the broken tiles that came off our roof when ”the stormy winds did blow”--an economy which pleased me much. Thus I am now entirely flower-garden--and with room for more flowers!!

Now to your kind offer. I think it will take rather more than 50 bunches of primroses to complete the bank according to your plan--though not 100. Say 70: but if there are a few bunches to spare I shall put them down that border where the laurels are, against the wall under the ivy. They flower there, and other things don't.

Now about the wild daffodils--indeed I _would_ like some!!! I fear I should like enough to do this: [_Sketch._]

These be the Poets' narcissus along the edge of the gra.s.s above the strawberry bank, and I don't deny I think it would be nice to have a row of wild Daffys (where the red marks are) to precede the same narcissus next spring if we're spared! The Daffys to be planted _in the gra.s.s_ of the gra.s.s-plat.

I doubt if less than two dozen clumps would 'do it handsome'!!!!!!!!

Now I want your good counsel. This is my back garden: [_Sketch._]

Next to Slugs and Snails (to which I have recently added a specimen of)

Puppy Dog's Tails--

my worst enemy is--WIND!