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 A garden in pink, 
 
 3 1924 014 495 216 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014495216 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
A GARDEN IN 
 PINK 
 
 By BLANCHE ELIZABETH WADE 
 
 With numerous drawings and decorations 
 in color by 
 
 LUCY FITCH PERKINS 
 
 And twelve illustrations from photographs 
 
 CHICAGO ■ A. C. McCLURG 
 AND COMPANY • MCMV 
 
-TZ3 
 Wn9G 
 
 Copyright 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 1905 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 Published October 28, 1905 
 
 THE UNIVEBSITy PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
TO MY FAMILY 
 
 AND 
 
 TO THE LADY OF GLENCAIRN HALL 
 
 This Book 
 
 Is Appectionately Dedicated 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chaptkb Paoe 
 
 I The Idea • 1 
 
 II A Gardener to Match 9 
 
 III What Came of Listening to a Well- 
 
 Developed Imagination ...... 19 
 
 IV Yedo Cherry-Blooms, a Dragon, and the 
 
 Unmentionables 31 
 
 V What Came of Consulting Catalogues . . 40 
 
 VI Concerning Sun-Dials 54 
 
 Intermezzo. The Garden in Pink .... 67 
 
 VII A Sun-Dial of Note 71 
 
 VIII A Four- Voiced Fugue, ButterflieSj and Felix 82 
 
 IX A Passing Shadow 96 
 
 X Concerning Complexions 109 
 
 XI The Sun-Dial Speaks 121 
 
 XII On the Borders of an Unknown Land . . 134 
 
 XIII Hollyhocks 153 
 
 XIV The Pink Garden Book, and a Snail m the 
 
 PoRTULACA Woods 167 
 
 XV Concerning an Intruder and the Bee-Tree 185 
 
 XVI The Pink Garden Sleeps ....... 197 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 The Entrance Frontispiece 
 
 Glencaien Hall — East Side 7 
 
 In the Gaeden 15 
 
 The Scn-Dial 37 
 
 The Ceow's Nest 47 
 
 The Caien 77 
 
 The River Path 89 
 
 A Garden Path 115 
 
 The Rivee Bank 127 
 
 The Bee-Tree 141 
 
 The Bee-Tree and the Bridge 173 
 
 The Caien — Another View 191 
 
 Also Seventeen Decorative Drawings introducing the 
 Chapters, and Sixty Flower Panels 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE IDEA 
 
 IT may have been suggested 
 by the pale flush of a rosy 
 sunrise, or by the tender glow 
 of a dying day ; by the sudden re- 
 membrance of a fragrant breath 
 of last Summer's pinks, or by a 
 mere glance at my Spring gown ; 
 yet I think the arbutus was the 
 real cause of the inspiration. 
 
 However that may be, as we 
 wandered under the leafless trees, 
 I exclaimed to The Other One, — 
 
 "O Other One, this year it 
 shall be pink I" 
 
 "Pink I" said The Other One, 
 "and is it not always pink, O Best 
 Of All ? " 
 
 " Always pink ? " said I in sur- 
 prise. " To what do you refer ? " 
 
 " To your new gown, of course. 
 I believe that was the topic, was 
 it not ? " 
 
 " You know it was not ! " I 
 exclaimed. " There was no topic 
 whatever. We were strolling out 
 just to see the little new buds 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 on the trees and bushes, and you said you caught a 
 taste of arbutus in the wind, and then we came upon 
 all those dear, pink flowers, and then — " 
 
 " And then you said, O Best Of All, ' This year 
 it shall be pink 1 ' " 
 
 " So it shall ! " I cried, again carried away with 
 my inspiration. 
 
 " But arbutus is always pink, is it not ? " queried 
 The Other One. "This year, at least, it really looks 
 very pink indeed." 
 
 " Now you are laughing at me, although you 
 know all the time what I mean," said I. 
 
 " But I thought your last year's one was covered 
 with pink blossoms," said The Other One seriously. 
 
 " My last year's what ? " I demanded. 
 
 " Bonnet," said The Other One in a scared voice. 
 
 " Bonnet ! " I retorted, and gave him a withering 
 glance. " Bonnet, indeed ! Do you think I put 
 on those horrid, thick overshoes and came out here 
 with you under these glorious trees to talk about 
 bonnets? Listen well! I repeat: This year the 
 garden shall be pink ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said The Other One, with a re- 
 lieved tone. "I — I — am feeling much better 
 now. I think it is quite possible I shall recover." 
 
 And he did. I led him to a seat in the sunshine, 
 and gave him a history of what the garden, this 
 year, was to be, — a description so lengthy and 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 detailed that I believe he knew the number of plants 
 to go into each border and bed, and even could 
 tell how many leaves there would be on each stalk ; 
 for The Other One has two merits. First, he listens 
 carefully, and second, he has a long memory. 
 
 When I had finished he said it was a capital idea, 
 — and that makes me think I The Other One has 
 three merits, after aU. The third is that he likes 
 what I like. By a glance at his glowing face it was 
 plain to see that he looked upon me as a genius for 
 inventing such a scheme. 
 
 Then he began to think. Nowj when The Other 
 One begins to think, with a certain kind of expres- 
 sion on his face, his next sentence is sure to be 
 headed with the word. But. 
 
 "But, O Best Of All," said he, when he had 
 thought as long a time as he deemed necessary, 
 "consider what a prodigious amount of work this 
 new garden plan will require." 
 
 " All gardens demand work," quoth I. 
 
 " But I mean the unusual amount, in this case," 
 he went on. " Why, it will take from now tiU mid- 
 summer for the uprooting alone 1 " 
 
 " The up-what ? " said I, blankly. 
 
 " The uprooting," he answered. " For surely 
 everything not pink will have to be banished, of 
 course, and there are quantities of Ulac-bushes, and 
 syringas, and — " 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " O, but I shall have not one of 
 those bushes disturbed, under any 
 circumstances I " I said, horrified. 
 
 " Then your garden will be not quite 
 aU pink, as you intended, will it ? " 
 
 "Indeed it willl" I said with 
 emphasis. 
 
 " Are you — do you think of dye- 
 ing the — the buds as they appear, 
 or make the bushes change their 
 style by feeding them a warranted- 
 not-to-fade tonic, ^ or — " 
 
 " Now truly thou art stupid, O 
 Other One," I laughed, "or else I 
 have left too much to your imagina- 
 tion, for I thought I told you The 
 Italian Garden is to be my Pink 
 Garden. That is artificial, anyway. 
 Each year the trees are chpped so, 
 the hedges so, the fountain put into 
 running order, and tbe rarest plants 
 and shrubs brought together fi-om 
 one hardly knows where. Not that 
 I have grown tired of that delight- 
 ful, foreign conceit, for you know it 
 has been my favorite spot. It is so 
 restful just to saunter up those wide 
 steps to The Italian Terrace, and to 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 drop into Florence, as it were, — 
 which really means the nearest seat 
 if John is puttering around amongst 
 the plants, but the soft, thick 
 grass if he is not in sight. That 
 man never can understand that grass 
 was made especially to sit on, and 
 whenever he comes upon me unex- 
 pectedly where I chance to have 
 thrown myself down for joy upon 
 the turf, he hastens to my assist- 
 ance, thinking, perhaps, I have fal- 
 len, or have turned my ankle. I 
 feel guUty when I look into his face, 
 for I see that if I but mention my 
 preference to that sort of seat, he 
 will not appreciate my taste ; so 
 when he hurries up to me I some- 
 times ask him how he keeps the 
 grass so free from weeds, or I untie 
 my shoe and tie it over again, — 
 just anything to make it plain to him 
 that I have a good reason to be so 
 near the earth. And once, when he 
 had gone off about his hedge trim- 
 ming, and his back was toward me, I 
 suddenly put my face down and kissed 
 the grass, — but to my subject : — 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Know, then, O Other One, that the dear lilac- 
 bushes never shaU be made to bleach their budlets, 
 or the syringas to dye theirs ; for these shrubs and 
 bushes, as well as the other flowering ones, are out- 
 side of The Italian Garden. The large flower-garden, 
 the vegetable-garden, and the herb-garden still shall 
 yield plants of Adolet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, 
 orange, or red color, and I shaU find no fault. But 
 as for The Italian Garden, it shall change its aspect. 
 There I shall reign alone. Not even John, nor 
 thou, O Other One, shall say: 'Thus, and so.' It 
 shall be mine to command. And, really, if every- 
 thing should prove a failure, — though nothing pink 
 ever did, except that fi-osting the cook flavored with 
 witch-hazel, by mistake, — why, it \H11 not matter 
 so very much, for the garden is in so retired a spot, 
 off there next to the woods, that it never need be 
 seen by outsiders. They can look at the other gar- 
 dens and be thankful." 
 
 " For what ? " asked The Other One. 
 
 "That they have ordinary, sensible tastes," I 
 repUed. 
 
 " Then," I went on, " in my Italian Garden there 
 will be no shrubbery to tear out, for those clipped 
 yews and the rest of the greenery are just what I 
 want to set off the pink effect. Only the flowers 
 shaU. be tampered with." 
 
 "To carry out your scheme still further, you 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 might pink the edges of the plain petals," sug- 
 gested The Other One, but I did not hear him, 
 being at this moment attacked by a convenient fit 
 of deafness. I stooped to pick a piefce of arbutus for 
 his button-hole. 
 
 "Do you agree, O Other One?" I asked, "If 
 so, step forward like Hans Christian Andersen's sol- 
 dier in the story, — ' One, two ; one, two,' — and 
 accept this, thy badge of pink, showing thus, that 
 you never will desert the cause, but will stand by 
 me, — and then, — do say something nice ! " 
 
 He came forward solemnly, " One, two ; one, 
 two " ; and very fooUshly knelt on the wet things in 
 the mud, while I fastened the arbutus into his coat. 
 
 " O Best Of All," said he, " I always knew you 
 saw things through rose-colored glasses, — glasses 
 more delicately rose than those of the common, jubi- 
 lant mortal, — but now I know more besides. I 
 know that you dream in pink, you feel in pink, you 
 breathe in and exhale pink breaths, your thoughts are 
 pink, and pink is your very soul. If you wish to live 
 in pink, why not ? I accept the token. Henceforth 
 I serve under the pink banner of the Best Of All I " 
 
 "Rise, Sir Knight," said I, giving him both hands. 
 I do not know as that is the proper way to knight a 
 person, but it suited The Other One, and being a 
 benighted mortal, he had to be suited. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A GARDENER TO MATCH 
 
 EVEN John had to change 
 his color, — that is, as to 
 his name. Why his par- 
 ents, who were forced to make 
 themselves known to the world 
 as Brown, should have chosen the 
 name John for their son is more 
 than I can imagine, — as though 
 one John Brown has not been 
 enough ! But probably there 
 are many John Browns besides 
 our particular one, and it is pos- 
 sible, too, that there were numer- 
 ous John Browns before the 
 John Brown existed ; in fact, it 
 is likely that even to the end of 
 the world the name John Brown 
 wiU gladden the hearts of many 
 parents and sadden the hearts of 
 the John Browns themselves. 
 
 What a difference it would 
 make if people were allowed to 
 choose their own names after 
 reaching an age when their tastes 
 were so well developed that no 
 mistakes would be made I It is 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 safe to say that the name John Brown would be- 
 come extinct. 
 
 Now our John Brown never had given the sub- 
 ject much thought, I am sure. I can tell this 
 because of two things. In the first place, his hair 
 has not turned gray, which shows that he has not 
 worried overmuch, for he is of an age which finds 
 other men of less placid mind fairly coining gray 
 hairs. In the second place, I never have known him 
 to give any subject much thought^ and therefore I 
 know positively he has lost no sleep on account of 
 his short, sad, expressive name. 
 
 It was something of a shock to him, in conse- 
 quence of this calm, unthinking state in which 
 he lived, and moved, and had his being, when I 
 told him he must change his name. Heretofore 
 he had been a Brown study; hereafter he should 
 be a Pink one. No brown flowers should be al- 
 lowed in The Pink Garden, and so John must be 
 dyed. 
 
 " Well," said he, after a look of surprise, " if I 
 must change my name, I suppose I must. The 
 wages is that good I can't afford to lose them, and 
 I 'm sure you suit me right well ; but I '11 have you 
 know. Mis' Best Of All," — that 's The Other One's 
 fault, — "that John Brown always has been con- 
 sidered a respectable name in my family." 
 
 " And so it is, John," said I, " but it is just a little 
 
 10 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 fancy I have in my curious head. You see, my 
 ItaUan Garden is to be changed throughout. Noth- 
 ing but pink flowers shall be allowed, besides the 
 greenery, and whenever you are in the garden I 
 shall call you Giovanni Pincolini. Giovanni is the 
 Italian name for John, and Pincohni I have in- 
 vented purposely for you. It is ItaUan in form, and 
 simply changes you from Brown to Pink." 
 
 " Very well. Mis' Best Of All," said John. " If it 
 suits you, it had oughter suit me, but I 'U be hanged 
 if I 'U ever be able to caU myself by such a pesky, 
 queer-sounding name as that. If you '11 kinder say 
 it often to me, I '11 try my best to learn it, but I 
 have my own opinion of Dagos ! " 
 
 The Other One said I bribed John to consent to 
 this re-christening, but that is not so. I give my 
 word of honor that nothing else passed between us. 
 It was a bargain of words only. The Other One 
 said that if I succeeded in making John agree to 
 answer to that outlandish name, he was sure I would 
 have The Pink Garden, and that encouraged me to 
 lay my plans before Giovanni PincoHni. 
 
 Confident that the gardener would approve, I 
 started in. He held up his hands in a surprised 
 manner. 
 
 " All pink ! " said he. " Who 'd ever have thought 
 
 it ! Pink roses, pink huUyhocks, pink asters, pink 
 
 geraniums, pink sun-flowers, pink — " 
 
 11 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Who ever heard of a pink sun- 
 flower, Giovanni ? " said I. 
 
 " But they 'd be a-having to turn 
 pink if you told them to, Mis' Best 
 Of AU," said he. " But I do think 
 you'll have a grarid garden if you 
 do all that, and I 'U be looking over 
 the garden books to see what things 
 you can get already pink, without 
 having to ask them to change their- 
 selves." 
 
 So, while the sharp Spring winds 
 told aU tender flowers to wait awhile 
 longer in the earth, Giovanni Pin- 
 colini and I plotted. He became as 
 enthusiastic as one could wish. I 
 never had known him to think so 
 hard before. Then, when the soft- 
 ness of the ground permitted, he 
 plotted alone. Surely our Italian 
 Garden was a different affair alto- 
 gether ! 
 
 " Only them there stiff, clipped 
 things looks just the same," said Gio- 
 vanni one day, " and no I-talyan this 
 side or t'other would know the place. 
 'Pears to me that pink's going to 
 change the garden wonderful ! " 
 
 12 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " And so shall Pincolini," said I. 
 
 « I 'm wiUing, Mis' Best Of All," 
 he answered. 
 
 What an excitement there was, 
 to be sure I I fear that Giovanni 
 rather neglected the vegetable, herb, 
 and ordinary gardens, in his interest 
 in the making over of The Italian 
 Terrace. Carefully he removed 
 whatever remained from last year. 
 Stray bulbs, roots, and bushes were 
 taken from the soft earth. I found 
 him, one day, peeling a large tuHp^ 
 bulb. 
 
 " O, IHo mio ! " I exclaimed in 
 horror. "What, oh, what are you 
 doing, Giovanni? You wiU ruin 
 that fine bulb 1 " 
 
 "Well, you see. Mis' Best Of 
 All," he repUed, "he was that fat 
 and good-looking I thought 'twas 
 more than likely he 'd be a pink 
 feller, and it 'most seemed as if I 
 could tell for sure, if I could get 
 deep enough to find his heart." 
 
 "Let him show his color in his 
 own way," said I, "and when the 
 season of blossoming comes, if he 
 
 13 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 prove worthy, he shall be re-installed ; but you can- 
 not force him to declare to which party he belongs 
 by that method." 
 
 Giovanni Pincolini has a wife. They live in a 
 small, brown house about a mile from our estate, 
 and have, in addition to the house, a small piece of 
 ground which is shut in by fences forming a door- 
 yard at the front, shambles along in an irregular, 
 narrow strip at each side of the dwelling, and then 
 spreads itself with a sigh of relief, as it were, into a 
 garden of comfortable size at the back. 
 
 Mrs. John Brown has a fondness for plants and 
 for plant-culture ; and as Mrs. Brown's stock of 
 bulbs, rare seeds, and cuttings of winter-plants orig- 
 inally drew breath in The Other On.e's domains, and 
 were presented to her by me, — with such additions 
 now and then, from Giovanni's own hand, as he 
 deemed not needed in the said domains, — she natur- 
 ally sympathized with me in aU of my efforts in gar- 
 dening, even kindly offering to take the plants not 
 pink off my hands. 
 
 When John told her of my intentions regarding 
 the ineligible ones she was disappointed, of course, 
 but, considering herself entitled to some sort of 
 remuneration for my tampering with her husband's 
 name, she paid me a visit. The conversation 
 follows. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mrs. Brown," said I. 
 
 14. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Good-morning, Mis' Best Of All," said she. 
 
 She always follows her husband's example, and if 
 he had chosen to call me the great Mrs. Panjandrum, 
 " Good-morning, great Mis' Panjandrum," it would 
 have been. 
 
 She went directly to the subject on her mind. 
 
 " My lawful and wedded husband," said she, " has 
 been a-tellin' me about your Pink Garden you're 
 a-goin' to have, and being as I have a considerable 
 number of pink hyacinth bulbs, and some pink tulip 
 ones, too, besides some pink things that just grow in 
 the ground 'thout no bulb detachments to 'em, I 
 thought maybe you'd like to trade some of them 
 you don't want, 'count of their not being the proper 
 color, for these here pink ones of mine, in especial, 
 as I hain't raised no objections to your caUin' my 
 lawful and wedded husband by another name, — and 
 a name," she continued solemnly, " that my lawful 
 and wedded husband has n't even yet been able to 
 teU me himself." 
 
 " But, my dear Mrs. Brown," said I, " it is not 
 necessary that he must give up his real name at all. 
 It was just a fancy of mine to caU him something to 
 go with the garden, and I therefore asked him if I 
 might not call him Giovanni Pincolini whenever he 
 happened to be working in The Italian Pink Garden." 
 
 " Would you mind sajdn' that name again ? " 
 said she. 
 
 16 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Gio-van-ni Pinc-o-li-ni," said I, slowly and dis- 
 tinctly. " It is an Italian form." 
 
 " Well, John ain't got no 1-talyan form," said she, 
 " and he ain't pink nor lean, neither. As for that 
 first name you said, they can't neither one of us say 
 it plain, and I don't like a thing I can't understand, 
 and I never did Uke a thing I could n't understand, 
 and what 's more, I ain't never a-going to like a thing 
 I can't understand. When it 's come to this, that 
 other folks is a-calling your lawful and wedded hus- 
 band by a name not even he can say, much less know 
 the meaning of, — a name which may be some fur- 
 eign swear words, for all a body knows, — it 's time 
 somebody inquired about it. Furthermore, I ain't 
 willin' to be Mis' Something Pink-and-Lean till I 
 know that it 's a respectable name, for I 'm the wife 
 of my lawful and wedded husband, and what 's his 
 is mine ; so that name belongs to me as well as 
 to him." 
 
 " And a beautiful name it is, too," said I. " Why, 
 Mrs. Brown, there is many a noble Italian Count 
 who would be dying with envy to have such a name 
 as that. ' Giovanni ' is so very respectable, for it 
 means * John ' ; and ' Pincolini ' suggests dainty, pink 
 buds, little new tendrils, soft, murniiuring fountains, 
 and faint breezes. Besides, that makes me think of 
 another matter, too ! I want to consult you about a 
 new variety of cactus I have started in the house. I 
 
 17 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 have another sUp you might like to try in your 
 window-garden, and we can talk oyer where you can 
 best plant some of the bulbs and toots that aren't 
 pink, and which I can very well dd without, — even 
 in my other gardens. Come into my morning-room 
 a few minutes, dear Mrs. Brown." 
 
 " Mis' Best Of AU," said she, in a low tone, as she 
 obeyed, "would you be so good as to call me by 
 my lawful and wedded husband's Pink-and-Lean 
 name ? " 
 
 And so I gained the Duchess PincoUni. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WHAT CAME OF LISTENING TO 
 
 A WELL-DEVELOPED 
 
 IMAGINATION 
 
 IN the rambling old house in 
 which The Other One and I 
 have made our nest there is 
 one wing — appropriate, of com-se, 
 to a nest — used as a sort of stow- 
 away place ; and in the second 
 story there is a room of goodly 
 size, which, on account of its 
 many delightful advantages, I de- 
 cided to make into The Garden 
 Room. 
 
 First of all, a large bay-window, 
 suitable for a conservatory, looks 
 out upon the distant ItaUan Ter- 
 race, and at one corner of the 
 room is a smaller bay-window, 
 from which one can get a view of 
 the other gardens at the back of 
 the house. 
 
 Secondly, the room can be 
 heated without any difficulty. 
 
 Thirdly, there is running water 
 at hand. 
 
 Fourthly, there are lots of cup- 
 boards and shelves. 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Fifthly, one can make as much litter as one wishes 
 without feeling obliged to put things in order at the 
 close of the day. It is most agreeable to possess 
 one room upon which you can turn the key when 
 you hear the dressing-beU ring, and comforting to 
 know that the dear old punctual sun wiU set as 
 majestically as ever, even though his last glance 
 through the conservatory window shows him a dis- 
 ordered room beyond. It is great fun to gaze at 
 him a moment before closing The Garden Room 
 door, and to smile wickedly at him, for he does not 
 mind a bit, and, so far, never has found fault with 
 any of my misdeeds. 
 
 I have given five of the reasons why this room 
 is suitable for my purposes, and to be exact I must 
 have two more, for I am very fond of the number 
 seven, and think that if the ancients had not chosen 
 it to signify completeness, it might bave fallen to my 
 lot to discover this fact to the world. 
 
 And there are two more reasons. One is, that no 
 outsider either supposes or suspects the wing to be 
 in use at all; therefore there is the possibility of 
 seclusion. 
 
 The last reason is, that The Other One suggested 
 this room himself. In this I am convinced he had 
 motives not wholly unselfish, for he has a Well- 
 Developed Imagination, and one evening he brought 
 it out, and let it talk to us, and it hinted at quiet 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 evenings of relaxation, away from the well-ordered. 
 Thoroughly Respectable Portion of the House. It 
 showed us the pleasures of a cozy apartment strewn 
 with periodicals and favorite books ; it pointed out 
 the secret panel in the wainscoting, and went so far 
 as to open this panel, displaying cups and saucers, a 
 few knives, forks, and spoons, and a chafing-dish. 
 Then, taking a more lofty flight, — one which made 
 us catch our breaths, in fact, — it hfted a veil (The 
 Other One's tobacco smoke, to be truthful), and we 
 saw, and we heard. We saw The Other One's old 
 piano, — the one fitted with pedal attachment, for 
 he still keeps up his study of the organ, — and 
 near the piano his violin-case. And we heard soft 
 strains, — now a gentle melody of Mozart, a few 
 bars from a Beethoven Sonata, a faint hint of Men- 
 delssohn ; and, while we listened, the voice of Bach, 
 calm but persuasive, stole through our senses in the 
 Air on the G String. 
 
 " That," said The Other One in suppressed excite- 
 ment, " that melody, — that, is pink ; and Bach 
 himself is pink, though few really find it out after 
 all. The ignorant, the thoughtless, and the indiffer- 
 ent find him a duU brown or a dingy drab. Those 
 who pretend to know him, and who flaunt their 
 would-be understanding in the faces of forced ad- 
 mirers, find him glaring blue, or flaming vermilion. 
 Only those who know how to love him find him 
 
 21 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 pink, — and of that delicate, evasive 
 pink that holds one in spite of one- 
 self. I know of nothing more beau- 
 tifully pink to my mind than that 
 G String Melody. Listen I " and as 
 he reached for his violin I slipped 
 over to the piano, to play the accom- 
 paniment. As we played, a vision 
 came up before me. I saw a flower- 
 decked chancel, and even caught the 
 fragrance of the blossoms. Quietly 
 mingling with the rector's tones the 
 Bach Air flowed on until, — "Let 
 no man put asunder " had been said, 
 — ^ until the triumphant notes of 
 Mendelssohn pealed forth, and I 
 walked down the aisle at The Other 
 One's side. Even afterward it was 
 not the sweet, dignified Lohengrin 
 Bridal Song nor yet the thrilling 
 Mendelssohn Wedding March that 
 haunted me, but the tenderness of 
 Bach. Yes, The ,Other One was 
 right. The Air on the G String 
 is pink! 
 
 So we let the Well-Developed 
 Imagination talk to us, and through 
 that whole evening it whispered and 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 sung, and always to that wonderful 
 Melody. 
 
 That is how the decision regard- 
 ing The Garden Room was made, 
 and while Giovanni Pincolini la- 
 bored outside, preparing the beds, 
 The Other One and I worked in- 
 side. No doubt the servants 
 thought that we were crazy ; at 
 least they shook their heads as they 
 went about the cleaning-and-put- 
 ting-into-order process. 
 
 We covered the floor with plain, 
 matter-of-fact linoleum of the red- 
 dish, yellowish, grayish, brownish 
 color of the earth, for in a Garden 
 Room things happen that some- 
 times do not improve the looks of 
 the floor-covering. However, to add 
 brightness and comfort we provided 
 rugs of soft, unobtrusive hues, for 
 rugs can be moved out of harm's 
 way when indoor gardening experi- 
 ments are to be tried. 
 
 The Other One put up more 
 shelves, and procured a huge chest 
 containing trays of many compart- 
 ments. Any odd chimney-comer. 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 or niche in the walls, gave excuse for cupboards of 
 aU shapes and sizes, and the smaller bay-window 
 overlooking the gardens at the back was fitted with 
 a deep window-seat underneath which were more 
 shelves and compartments. 
 
 Then into this "curiosity-shop" we welcomed 
 everything comfortable, but not quite respectable. 
 Thus old-fashioned, low rocking-chairs, and chairs 
 that were not made to rock, took up their abode 
 here, and tried hard to do their duty in that state 
 of life to which they had been called. I overheard 
 Norah telling Giovanni Pincohni that she was glad 
 Mrs. Best Of All had taken " them shabby, old, big, 
 unmanageable wicker-chairs up to the old wing 
 where they belonged." But the same Norah later 
 opened her eyes in surprise when she saw "them 
 shabby, old, big, unmanageable wicker-chairs " trans- 
 formed by dark green stain, and made comfortable 
 with great, fat, lazy, green velveteerj cushions. 
 
 The Other One's piano rolled into its comer near 
 the conservatory as contentedly as though it had 
 known all along that its place had been waiting for 
 it there, and The Other One said that his violin-case 
 walked up the stairs alone. " Yes, with the assist- 
 ance of two legs," said I. 
 
 Dog-eared embodiments of the works of our be- 
 loved old master musicians and of our modern favor- 
 ites came to live in our Garden Room, and the new 
 
 24 
 
A GARDEN IN PiN K 
 
 grand piano in the music-room of the Thoroughly- 
 Respectable Portion of the House had fresh copies 
 to spread upon its shining rack, and was no longer 
 obliged to turn up its nose at shabby gentility. 
 
 The Other One asked me about the walls. 
 
 " Are they not to be pink ? " queried he. 
 
 "At present we must leave them as they are," 
 said I, " but wait a few months, and I will show you 
 a different place. I have a scheme, but it is not yet 
 in season." 
 
 So The Other One waited, — being good at that 
 sort of thing, — and when the time came he set at 
 work to help me make over the walls. Coming up 
 into The Garden Room one afternoon he said : 
 
 " What are all those bulrushes for downstairs ? 
 Seems to me you must be going into the chair 
 business. Are you going to reseat all we own ? " 
 
 " No ; but if you will be pleased to take a seat, 1 
 will explain." 
 
 " A wainscoting I " said he in surprise, when I had 
 finished. " But how ? " 
 
 " Look 1 " said I, and held up a square piece made 
 of woven rushes. 
 
 "Well, welll" said he. "But it wiU take you 
 forever." 
 
 " Not if you help," I returned, and having been 
 instructed he fell to, and our evenings for some time 
 after were spent in weaving the pliable material. 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 We would cease our labor for a 
 little music and an impromptu 
 supper, and then turn the key on 
 our littered room and leave it for 
 the night. 
 
 In the course 6f time we had 
 about the walls a wainscoting reach- 
 ing as high as The Other One's shoul- 
 der, and of a pale green tone which 
 time would turn to a soft yeUow. 
 When we came to the secret panel, 
 we met with a conundrum. To 
 cover that successfully seemed an 
 impossibiUty, for when rushes are 
 very dry they will break if bent, 
 and we could see that the door 
 must be taken off its hinges and 
 planed a little, in order to allow for 
 the extra thickness of the rushes 
 that would have to be shut in over 
 the edges of the seams where the 
 panel fitted in. This would not do, 
 for if ever we decided to do away 
 with the rush wainscoting, the plan- 
 ing would make the panel conspicu- 
 ous. But The Other One has ideas. 
 One of these, after much rummag- 
 ing in his brain, he drew forth, and 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 it solved our conundrum. Measur- 
 ing off a piece of wire screen to suit 
 the size of the cupboard door, he 
 had me sew to this screen a piece of 
 the rush wainscoting, a Uttle larger 
 than the panel. The screen kept 
 the rush panel from warping, and 
 we hung it by loops to the wall just 
 above our secret doorway. By 
 means of other loops we fastened it 
 below the doorway, so that it fitted 
 as smoothly as possible over our 
 wall cupboard. When we wished 
 to open the panel we had only to 
 unfasten the loops below and lift 
 the rush screen, fastening it up to 
 a small nail in the waU above. 
 
 Next, we made portieres, and for 
 the principal material of these Gio- 
 vanni Pincohni again sought the 
 swamps. The Other One laughed 
 when he saw baskets of rushes of 
 the round, jointed kind. I showed 
 him some boxes of rather large, cut, 
 pink beads, and some linen thread, 
 and his puzzled face was a joy to 
 behold. Then, while we separated 
 the rushes joint from joint, I told 
 
 27 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 him how we were going to make the bead portieres 
 for the doorways of The Garden Room by stringing 
 the rushes and beads : first, a section of rush, then 
 two or three beads ; then another section of rush ; 
 then more beads, and so on. He became enthusi- 
 astic, and when the stringing and measuring began 
 he was untiring. He begged to be allowed to make 
 the curtain for the doorway at the entrance of the 
 room himself, making me promise not to watch him, 
 but informing me that he would need a lot of beads. 
 He spread his strings on the floor at one side of the 
 room and made me sit at the other, with the table 
 and the lamp between, and with my face turned 
 away from him. Then, when music time came, he 
 would cover his work with a large sheet, and I would 
 promise not to lift so much as a corner, and there it 
 would lie until the next evening. 
 
 When at last his curtain was finished and was 
 hung, he bade me look, and I beheld a remarkable 
 piece of labor. A band of beaded network formed 
 the top of the curtain, and from this hung the strings. 
 In the centre of the curtain was the figure of a harp 
 made of beads, the different lengths of the rushes so 
 calculated as to make the likeness stand out clearly. 
 In each corner of the curtain was a small pink bead 
 rose, very short bits of rush being introduced to form 
 the division between petals. 
 
 " The harp," said The Other One, " is to signify 
 
 28 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 that only harmony reigns within The Garden Room, 
 and the pink roses further designate the character of 
 the place." 
 
 " That," said I in delight, " is a truly pink idea ! " 
 
 A portiere of the same materials, but less elabo- 
 rate in pattern, was hung up in the doorway of 
 the small lavatory, and other curtains were looped 
 back in the corner bay-window and in the conser- 
 vatory. 
 
 The walls above the wainscoting next took our at- 
 tention. On several occasions The Other One and 
 I had strolled into the woods for maiden-hair ferns, 
 — he little suspecting to what use these delicate 
 green things would be put. And now the walls had 
 been tinted a soft pink, and turning over the leaves 
 of numberless newspapers we drew forth these same 
 ferns as beautifully green as ever, and smoothly 
 pressed and dried. Then, as fast as The Other One 
 with a wide brush pasted the backs of the ferns, I 
 arranged them on the walls, and before many even- 
 ings were over we were in a veritable woodland 
 bower. " Aspiration Hall," The Other One nick- 
 named the room, for he said those slender green 
 fingers stretched upward as though reaching for 
 something just beyond the grasp. 
 
 The ceiling gave us no concern whatever. It was 
 paneled off in oak, and the old timbers, after a good 
 rubbing, looked in a dim light as mysterious and as 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 satisfactory as even the Well-Developed Imagination 
 could wish. 
 
 While yet the labor was going on Norah came up 
 one morning, and said : 
 
 "Beg pardon, ma'am, but Mrs, Brown is below, 
 and says as how she 's got somethin' fur ye, and I was 
 to say as how the Duchess Pink-an'-Lean wanted to 
 be speakin' wid ye, — whoever that may be ! " 
 
 I went to learn the pleasure of the Duchess 
 Pincohni. 
 
 " Good-morning, M is' Best Of All," said she. "My 
 ears have heard of your weaving rushes for many un- 
 accountable things, and as I says to my Duke Pink- 
 and-Lean, says I, 'What she wants is mats for her 
 floors ' ; and I 've made these myself for a kind of 
 payment for them seeds and things you give me." 
 
 She exhibited two corn-husk mats. 
 
 " Didn't have to go to no old malaria swamp to get 
 them," said she. " They breathed the good air and 
 sunshine, and drinked up the pure rain in my corn- 
 field on sound earth. I tell you them things are 
 healthy!" 
 
 And so at the foot of the staircase I placed one, 
 and outside of The Garden Room door the other of 
 my "healthy mats," the gift of the Duchess Pincolini. 
 
 And the only thing striking to me about this 
 chapter is that I have gone far ahead of my Pink 
 Garden, and must retrace my steps. 
 
 30 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 YEDO CHEBEY-BLOOMS, A DRAGON, 
 AND THE UNMENTIONABLES 
 
 THE Other One and I sat 
 together in The Garden 
 Room. As yet the plane 
 had received no wall nor doorway 
 decoration, for it was only three 
 weeks after the evening in which 
 the Well-Developed Imagination 
 had held forth ; but The Garden 
 Room was cozy, nevertheless. It 
 was thoroughly clean, — more so 
 than it ever might expect to 
 be again, — and the floor was 
 covered, all extra shelves and 
 compartments in place, the win- 
 dow-seat no longer a mjrth, and 
 even the cupboard behind the 
 secret panel in the old wainscot- 
 ing already stocked with all of 
 the dishes necessary to our use. 
 There were odd cups, saucers, and 
 plates picked up in all sorts of 
 queer shops in various cities of 
 the world, — those things you 
 love to use, but fear to have the 
 maids handle. 
 
 In the Thoroughly Respectable 
 
 31 
 
 t^S;; 
 
 %u^ 
 
 r .;v -7 -i 
 
 ^4^& 
 
 lEE^H^iaS 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Portion of the House these bits of china daily had 
 tormented me with their air of perfect safety. How 
 I had longed to drink from a particular Japanese cup 
 decorated with pale pink cherry-bloissoms ! "I will," 
 said I one day, and at luncheon time, when Norah 
 was bringing in the tea, I took the cup and saucer 
 from the shelf. The sound of loud rattling of dishes 
 somewhere within the precincts of the butler's pan- 
 try, or in the kitchen itself, made me change my 
 mind. With a sigh I relinquished the cherry-blooms 
 of Yedo, and they blushed, well pleased to be left for 
 ornamental purpose only, and seemed to flaunt their 
 fair petals more distractingly than ever. The tea 
 was poured into my old China cup, — old, not in 
 years but in experience, — and I tried to keep a stiff 
 upper lip when I was made aware of the new nick 
 in the edge, and to stare stonily at the pink blooms, 
 saying to them in my mind : " It tastes just as 
 good. It does, so there ! " But all the time I knew 
 my tea needed the enfolding embrace of those pink 
 cherry-blossoms to give it that dreamy, foreign, bam^ 
 booy, rice-papery, embroidered aroma that makes 
 one who likes tea feel that to be a glorious, gorgeous 
 bird swaying upside down on a -gold-thread vine 
 bearing six wistaria sprays of six different colors, and 
 seven chrysanthemums, no two of which are of the 
 same hue, is to know the true joy of living ; and, — 
 / Like Tea ! 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 It was about this time, too, that The Other One 
 said: 
 
 " Why is it, O Best Of All, that you never allow 
 me to drink from that furious, old dragony cup you 
 gave me on my last birthday ? It would be rather a 
 treat, you know, to have it at my place once in a 
 while. The old serpent really needs an occasional 
 warming up to keep up the fire in his eye, for it 
 must be depressing to have to pour forth a constant 
 blast of flame, when his poor, 'internal apparatus' 
 is cold and hollow. Really, I feel sorry for him 
 myself." 
 
 My answer was a silent one, but to the point. I 
 held up my old cup and saucer ; I reached over and 
 touched The Other One's own ; I motioned him to 
 be mute, and together we listened to the sounds 
 issuing from kitchen and pantry. The Other One 
 understood ! 
 
 " Why can't we get rid of — " 
 
 " They all do it," I interrupted. " It is of no use. 
 We are the ones to submit." 
 
 And so the cherry-blooms of Yedo flourished, 
 spreading their petals in dainty security ; all the 
 decorations on the other pieces of china gloried in 
 their safety; peacocks flaunted their extravagant 
 tails more vainly than ever ; queer figures passed in 
 and out of the tiny pagodas and carried themselves 
 fearlessly ; impossible birds fluttered no longer shyly 
 
 33 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 over budding branches, but stretched 
 then- wings gleefully ; while a Mary 
 Queen of Scots smiled placidly, nor 
 feared a second beheading. But, 
 worst of all, that grinning, fiery 
 dragon of the cold, hollow interior 
 stuck his red, forked tongue out stiU 
 further, and jeered, — actually jeered 
 at us I And with subdued demeanor 
 we continued to drink from our old, 
 nicked cups tea that had no dreamy, 
 foreign, bambooy, rice-papery, em- 
 broidered aroma, and neither of us 
 knew the joy it was to be a glorious, 
 gorgeous bird swaying upside down 
 on a gold-thread vine bearing six 
 wistaria sprays in six different colors, 
 and seven chrysanthemums, no two 
 of the same hue. No. Our tea 
 tasted hke plain tea, and we knew 
 but the foolish -pleiasure of remain- 
 ing just ourselves. 
 
 But now once more the cherry- 
 blooms quivered with fear or with 
 deUght, — I know not which, — and 
 the dragon spouted flames that came 
 from an added warmth within. Yet 
 I think these cups and the other 
 
 34 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK f 
 
 things rejoiced, for it must be 
 romantic to hide all day behind a 
 secret panel, then to be taken out 
 and exulted over at night, and 
 never, never to see Norah nor Cook, 
 but to be caressed lovingly, washed 
 tenderly, and guiltily concealed 
 again behind that secret panel, with- 
 out one rude jostle, or an unpleasant 
 rattle. 
 
 Downstairs in the Thoroughly 
 Respectable Portion of the House 
 very beautiful, modem cups, sau- 
 cers, and plates occupied the vacant 
 places, — just as dear, from a pecun- 
 iary point of view, if not so deai- 
 from the sentimental side. From 
 some of the less well-informed and 
 more fashionable among our friends, 
 these called forth exclamations of 
 even greater approval than had their 
 predecessors. 
 
 The Other One and I sat together 
 in The Garden Room. He was let- 
 tering, and 1 was watching him. He 
 always could fascinate me with his 
 pen work, for characters clear-cut, 
 crisp, yet quaint, fairly seemed to 
 
 35 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 crawl on to the paper of their own accord when he 
 but guided the pen. He was making labels for my 
 compartments, shelves, and drawers, and I was sup- 
 posed to be arranging my floral catalogues on the 
 shelves destined to hold this sort of literature. 
 
 " There I " said The Other One, as he made the 
 final curve to a letter. "That finishes your list, I 
 beheve, and now I 'U stretch my fingers on the piano 
 while you brew the tea and stuff." 
 
 " One minute, O Other One, — not so fast ! " said 
 I. " You have seven more letters to make for me, 
 — large ones, too. They are to speU a word to put 
 over the corner bay-window alcove," and I wrote the 
 word I wanted on a piece of paper. 
 
 "What's this?" said he. " V-I-B-G-Y-O-R. 
 I don't see, — why, — there never was such a word, 
 and even if there was it never had any meaning ! " 
 
 I chuckled with delight. It is such fun to mystify 
 The Other One ! 
 
 " You make the letters," said I, " and I 'U talk to 
 you about this word." 
 
 He set right about the task, content to work in the 
 dark, as it were. 
 
 "That word," I explained, "I learned in the 
 physics class long, long ago. It was Professor 
 Field who gave our class the word, to help us re- 
 member the order of the colors pf the spectrum. 
 You will notice that the initials of these seven 
 
 36 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 colors spell this name : V for Violet ; I for Indigo ; 
 B for Blue ; G for Green ; Y for Yellow ; O for 
 Orange ; and R for Red. There you have 
 the word Vibgyor, and it has a great deal of 
 meaning." 
 
 " But why do you want it for the alcove bay- 
 window, O Best Of All ? It seems -to me that word 
 includes everjrthing except pink, and your Garden 
 you wish to be all pink." 
 
 " Exactly so," I answered, " but we have other 
 gardens, too, you know, and the poor, dear things 
 must be looked after, even though not talked about. 
 As the alcove bay-window contains many shelves 
 and tiny cupboards, besides that big window-seat, 
 and as the view from there takes in these other gar- 
 dens, I thought that as this is a Garden Room there 
 ought to be places for the seeds and bulbs of all the 
 gardens. This alcove easily will accommodate aU 
 that pertains to the gardens not pink. Then we can 
 curtain it off, and the rest of the room wiU be for 
 pink things only." 
 
 " I see, now," said The Other One laughing, " and 
 so you will have your Pink Paradise Terrace and 
 your Vibgyor, or Garden of the Unmentionables." 
 
 " That 's it exactly," I cried, " and near the Gar- 
 den of the Unmentionables there will be a Find-Out 
 Garden where we can try things that we do not know 
 whether, when they come up, they wiU be pink or 
 
 38 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 not. It wiU save such a lot of sorrow and jealousy, 
 you know." 
 
 " How ? " asked The Other One. 
 
 " Why," said I, " supposing something we thought 
 would be pink should turn out red or blue in the 
 Pink Garden. Don't you see how sorry it would be 
 to have to be taken out of that lovely spot where it 
 had opened its eyes, and set down in a garden all 
 strange to it ? And don't you see how jealous The 
 Unmentionables would be if one of their number 
 should turn out pink, and should be taken up care- 
 fully, to join the elect in the Pink Garden ? " 
 
 " I see," said The Other One, with an inscrutable 
 smile, " that I have finished the seventh letter, and 
 I see, also, that it is time for you to brew the tea." 
 
 So he stretched his fingers with the aid of Bach, 
 and I went to the secret panel. 
 
 Then The Other One and I sat together in The 
 Garden Room, and our tea had that dreamy, foreign, 
 bambooy, rice-papery, embroidered aroma we loved, 
 and we knew the joy of the glorious, gorgeous bird 
 that swung upside down from a gold-thread vine 
 bearing six wistaria sprays of six different colors, 
 and seven chrysanthemums, no two of which were 
 of the same hue. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 WHAT CAME OF CONSULTING 
 CATALOGUES 
 
 THE Other One and I were 
 again in that rare Japanese 
 mood described in the last 
 chapter. On the table of The 
 Garden Room, on the chairs, and 
 on the floor were catalogues from 
 almost every known florist on 
 earth. We were poring over 
 these pamphlets, and were mark- 
 ing them for fiiture use. We 
 looked at each pictured blossom 
 and ran down the Ust of its sev- 
 eral varieties. If we found that 
 it could bloom in pink just as 
 well as not, we marked it with a 
 big P. But if we found that the 
 stubborn thing positively would 
 not show itself in this hue so 
 gentle, we put a large V opposite 
 its name, and consigned the Vex- 
 atious Villain Very Vehemently 
 to Vibgyor ! 
 
 "Do you know," said The 
 Other One presently, " I have 
 been thinking that you might 
 have a person whose duty it 
 
 40 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 would be to look after Vibgyor. Then Giovanni 
 Pincolini would be free to give aU of his attention to 
 making The Pink Garden a success. You see, he is 
 thoroughly interested in your experiment, — so much 
 so that I fear the other plants wiU have less care than 
 they deserve." 
 
 " That is true," said 1, " and even though I do not 
 care so much about the mixed flowers myself, yet it is 
 a sort of duty I owe my friends to have a respectable 
 garden for their benefit. I have but a few real pink 
 friends, and I assure you that no others wiU be asked 
 to take a cup of tea in The Pink Garden. Vibgyor 
 for the Vibgyorians. Tea will stiU be tea, though not 
 sipped where aU is pink, and tea is what Vibgyorians 
 want when they are 'so pleased ' and ' charmed ' and 
 ' delighted, don't you know ' to run in for a ' httle 
 chat.' So tea is what they will have. It vnl\ be as 
 strong, or as weak, as plain, or as weU-seasoned, as 
 they desire. It wiU be served with as thinly cut 
 bread as a queen might demand, and with as dehcious 
 cakes and as tempting relishes as the said Majesty 
 herself would wish ; but the tea wiU be served 
 in Vibgyor, and the flowers of many hues and many 
 scents will nod to the people of many types and 
 many hearts, and Vibgyor and the Vibgyorians will 
 be as happy as possible. But the chosen few will 
 be entertained in The Pink Garden on an Italian 
 Terrace, where there is but one color to the flowers, 
 
 41 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 and that color in all of its bright and in all of its 
 delicate moods ; where there is but one perfume in 
 the air, and that a perfume made up of aU the many 
 pink scents into one delicious breath of incense. 
 These wiU welcome the people of one heart, — a 
 heart that beats only and always in pink, and to 
 them the tea shall be — " 
 
 " A Pink Tea 1 " laughed The Other One, and I 
 fell from the heights to which I had soared, and 
 found myself sitting on a pile of catalogues at The 
 Other One's feet, looking absently up into his face ; 
 but what I was going to say about the tea is still in 
 my mind ! 
 
 "Yes," I said, after recovering my breath, and 
 wrapping away into a further corner of my brain 
 what I had been going to say about the tea, " yes, 
 it is my duty, dear Other One, to have Vibgyor as 
 presentable as possible, and since it is true, as you 
 say, that Giovanni is now a Pincolini to the back- 
 bone, we must have some one besides, or the other 
 gardens wiU suffer." 
 
 " Why not have Vibgyora ? " said The Other One. 
 
 " Vibgyora who ? " I asked. 
 
 " Brown, — plain Brown," said he. 
 
 " You mean the Duchess Pincolini ? " 
 
 " I do," answered he. " You see," he continued, 
 "the Duchess never has taken kindly to her new 
 name, although her 'lawful and wedded husband' 
 
 43 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 has reconciled her to it somewhat, and if you get her 
 to look after your other gardens, — a chance she un- 
 doubtedly will jump at, — you can change her name 
 to ' Vibgyora.' That may please her better than the 
 one you selected for her husband," 
 
 " So it may I " said I. " I think she wiU take 
 delight in looking after the other gardens. She 
 rejoices in colors, and she has excellent ideas regard- 
 ing herb beds, for she comes of an old-fashioned 
 family of old-fashioned wisdom. She was brought 
 up with poppies and pennyroyal ; with larkspurs and 
 lemon- verbena ; with sunflowers and sage ; and — " 
 
 " And," The Other One went on, " with coreopsis 
 and catnip ! " 
 
 " Therefore," said I, " the name will fit her. Quod 
 erat dej/wnstrandum." 
 
 We looked over the last catalogue, piled it up 
 with the rest, and consulted the secret panel The 
 remainder of the evening was pink> 
 
 The next day our orders went off to the various 
 florists we had decided to patronize, and I paid a visit 
 to our prospective Vibgyora. As it happened, I found 
 her looking over her own stock of seeds. She had 
 a large flour-sack fuU of assorted packets. 
 
 "Do not let me interrupt you," said I, as she 
 showed signs of giving up her intended task. " I 'U 
 help you. Seeds are so interesting, and it is such fun 
 to look at the slim, the flat, the rough, the smooth, and 
 
 43 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the round, pudgy things, and to won- 
 der how on earth— --or rather, under 
 the earth — they are going to change 
 into live, growing plants reaching 
 ever toward the sun ! " 
 
 " I was a-considering," said she, 
 "if you would mind lookin' them 
 over with me. I had nothing in 
 partic'lar to do this afternoon, and 
 it's high time I sort of calc'lated 
 about these here seeds. You've 
 always got to look over your stock 
 'fore plantin' time, to kind of know 
 what to do about your gardens, for 
 no matter if one Summer's garden 
 looks just like another Summer's 
 garden to other folks, you know 
 it's different yourself You have 
 to make a good many changes that 
 folks may not notice, but you know 
 every one of 'em yourself. For in- 
 stance, there 's some flowers as will 
 never grow so good twice in the 
 same place. They try their best if 
 they have to, but they do look 
 mighty spindly, the best they can 
 do. Such as them has got to be 
 put in a different spot next time. 
 
 44 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 They're like some city folks that 
 can't stay more 'n so long in a place 
 without needing a change and 
 lookin' the worse for wear if they 
 don't get it. Such folks try to 
 get along some way, if they have 
 to stay where they was planted, but 
 they look just as spindly as the 
 flowers. Land sakes I How quick 
 they do pick up when they get a 
 change I " 
 
 She spread a large piece of rag- 
 carpet on the floor, untied the flour- 
 sack, and poured out the contents. 
 Then she got me a low hassock, and 
 seated herself on the floor, and we 
 began work. 
 
 It was rather difficult to decipher 
 some of the names, for the good 
 woman's spelling was not that of the 
 common school. Where the method 
 of the common school demanded a 
 double letter, in some instances she 
 would get along with a single letter ; 
 and where it decided that one letter 
 was enough, she would find it a little 
 more elegant to double the character. 
 When she so desired, she altered the 
 
 45 
 
 .\ 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 spelling of a word so that the common school would 
 not recognize it. 
 
 I had picked up a paper labelled '^Sweet Alysum." 
 
 "That's one of my favorite flowers," said she, 
 "for it always seems so kind of childlike and inno- 
 cent. It never pushes itself into notice no more'n 
 it can help. It doesn't grow so high as to hide some 
 other flower, and it is so sweet that you generally 
 lay its smeU to some handsome flower that perhaps 
 ain't got a mite of a smell of its own, and was so 
 stuck up and so busy with being fine to look at that 
 it didn't have no time even to think of smelling 
 good. It 's only when you put your nose close to 
 the smart blossom you find it 's got nothing but its 
 looks to recommend it, and it 's a .great surprise to 
 stoop and discover it was that poor, dear, quiet, 
 little thing, after all, that was so thankful for just 
 being in the garden where the sun and the rain 
 and the dew was that it was glad to breathe out 
 its joy in one nice, sweet smell. And it's the 
 same with folks as with flowers. There 's a flesh and 
 blood bit of sweet alyssum in this room this very 
 minute, and it ain't me, neither ! " 
 
 " I wonder if it can be Cherry," said I, looking up 
 at a bright cage in the sunny window, and assuming 
 an innocence that would have shamed the flower 
 under discussion. 
 
 " No, it can't I " said she, " 'cause it ain't got no 
 
 46 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 wings, though I sometimes think it has them hid 
 from view. There's no question about its having 
 them sometime, anyways." 
 
 " It must be Malta kitty," I pursued wickedly, 
 and patted a soft, furry thing on a mat near us. 
 
 " The one I mean don't belong to the four-legged 
 variety," she remarked dryly. 
 
 When, finally, we had acquainted ourselves with 
 the amount of her seed treasures, she went to a 
 drawer in an old-fashioned dresser and drew out 
 a paper. This she unfolded and spread out be- 
 fore me. 
 
 " It 's my garden as it was last Summer," she ex- 
 plained, pointing out the names of various flowers 
 inserted in as many squares of a diagram correspond- 
 ing to the shape of her garden-beds. "And now," 
 said she, " I 'm going to make a new one for this 
 year. You see on my old plan here, opposite to 
 each flower, I marked a letter. If the plant did 
 well there I marked it with a G for Good. If it 
 didn't do much of anything I marked a B for Bad. 
 Where I 've put a cross it means that special flower 
 must be put in a different place this time. Even 
 some of the G's have to be changed, you see, for they 
 would not be G this year if I put them in the same 
 ground again." 
 
 " That 's a fine scheme," said I. " Get me a pen- 
 cil, some paper, and a ruler if you have one, and I '11 
 
 48 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 make your new diagram for you, and you can tell 
 where to put the flowers in their proper places." 
 
 " Well, now, that will be a sight of help," said she. 
 " It always takes me a good part of an afternoon to 
 get that drawed out, and the names in. I 'm awful 
 slow at drawing, and about the same at writing ; so it 
 takes me a consid'able time, all in aU. While you're 
 a-making the lines and squares like the old ones, I '11 
 make us a cup of tea. Seems as if tea always goes 
 with gardens, somehow. I don't know why, unless 
 it is because it used to grow in a garden once itself. 
 You can make the same number of squares as I did, 
 and if I want more we can diAade some of them up." 
 
 We sipped our tea, and talked over the placing of 
 the seeds on our diagram. 
 
 " My pansies did n't do very well last Summer," 
 said she, "so I had to mark them B. It seems 
 wrong to ever mark a B opposite to a pansy, but it 
 was n't their fault. I had them in a place that was 
 a little too sunny for them. They think as much 
 of the sun as does any other flower, but while 
 some flowers always seems to rush, and pull, and 
 grab all the sun there is, the pansies is more gentle, 
 and they 're just as happy and content if he smiles 
 at them occasionally through a thin screen of leaves. 
 So this year I 'm going to put them at this end of 
 the garden. Mark Pansies right there," indicating 
 the square with her finger. " There, that wiU fix 
 
 4,9 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 them ! There 's a big apple-tree near 
 that square, and he '11 let them have 
 all the sun they like in the morning, 
 but about noon he'U throw a nice, 
 wiggly shade over them, and let the 
 sun wink at them only once in a 
 while. Funny I never thought of 
 that square for pansies before I " 
 
 Avi/ By the time we had the garden 
 plan arranged Giovanni Pincolini 
 had come in for the milk-pails, and 
 when he had gone out I waited only 
 
 v^O^ long enough to make known my 
 real errand. Would the Duchess 
 Pincolini take charge of my herbs, 
 and of my many-oolored flowers ? 
 WeU, she rather guessed she 'd show 
 Mr. Joe Pink-and-Lean he wasn't 
 the only gardener on earth! 
 
 " You have my husband get them 
 beds ready for me," said she, "and 
 I '11 show you what flowers be, come 
 Summer-time. If he can do the 
 heavy part of the work, there ain't 
 no reason why I can't turn my 
 hands and my brains to some ac- 
 count, for they 're as well developed 
 of their kind as his, and being there's 
 
 so 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 only the two of us, and a small 
 house to look after, I 'd ought to 
 get enough time to do your beds 
 the way they'd ought to be done. 
 Yes 'm, 1 11 take care of them gar^ 
 dens and thank you kindly." 
 
 " There 's one thing more," I ven- 
 tured. " It 's about your name. You 
 need not be a Pincolini, unless you 
 so desire. You may be called 
 Vibgyora," and I explained to her 
 the meaning of the name. 
 
 " Well," said she, " that 's a great 
 weight ofF my mind, if it is another 
 sort of weight on my shoulders. 
 You know I never could remember 
 my husband's new name, — that is> 
 the first part of it, and the second 
 part was pretty hard, too, so I 
 called him plain Joe, and yet that 
 didn't seem to fit him so well as 
 John. Now this new name's dif- 
 ferent. It's kind of hard to say, 
 but not so bad as t'other, and I 
 think I might get to pronounce it 
 quite well." 
 
 " You do not dislike it then ? " I 
 queried. 
 
 SI 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Bless you, no ! I like it, though it sounds sort 
 of hysteriky at first. But then, when you come to 
 think of it, it reminds you of one of them heathen 
 goddesses you hear tell of." 
 
 " You shall be a goddess I " I cried. " Vibgyora, 
 Goddess of Color. It is a good thought. Do you 
 know, there is a flesh and blood goddess in this 
 very room, and it is not I, either ! " 
 
 " I wonder if it is n't Cherry ? " said she, with a 
 twinkle in her eye. 
 
 " No," said I, " but my goddess' wings are on the 
 verge of sprouting." 
 
 " Do tell ! " said she. " It must be Malta kitty," 
 and she laughed. 
 
 " The goddess I mean does not belong to the 
 four-legged species," said I merrily, and I ran down 
 the path and home to teU The Other One of my 
 success. 
 
 In a week's time the boxes and packages began 
 to arrive from the florists, and there was a noise 
 of unpacking in the air and a delightful sound of 
 hammering, of sphntering, of tearing, of rustling, — 
 and the floor of The Garden Room was littered with 
 packets and with bundles while The Other One and 
 I sat sorting them into two huge baskets, one marked 
 with a big P, the other with a big V. 
 
 " There is another thing you need for your Gar- 
 den in Pink," said The Other One suddenly. "An 
 
 52 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 important thing, too ! A picture in one of the cata- 
 logues convinced me of this need. It is something 
 one might call the very Soul of a garden. Can you 
 guess ? Think a bit." 
 
 He sat down at the piano and played softly, and I 
 saw The Garden in Pink wrapped in a gentle haze, 
 and as The Other One played on the haze hfted and 
 I looked into the heart of The Garden in Pink and 
 I saw, — 
 
 " A sun-dial ! " I cried. 
 
 " A sun-dial," said he. 
 
 53 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CONCERNING SUN-DIALS 
 
 T was not until the green 
 grass about and within The 
 Pink Garden was alive with 
 the delicate, blushing faces of 
 thousands of inountain-daisies 
 that The Sun-Dial — The Soul 
 of the Garden ^promised to be 
 a reality. 
 
 In the meantime, The Other 
 One and I had procured every 
 work on sun-dials possible. We 
 had pored over pages of books 
 and numerous miscellaneous arti- 
 cles on the subject until our heads 
 fairly seemed to ring with inscrip- 
 tions from ancient dials, and The 
 Other One said he felt as though 
 he were turning slowly, but none 
 the less surely, into a gnomon. 
 
 WeU, I do ndt wonder at that, 
 for upon him had fallen the hard 
 part of the whole scheme. We 
 knew of no sun-dial we might get 
 for our Garden, — that is, no dial 
 we could be satisfied with as being 
 the genuine thing, — and as the 
 only one we had trace of with 
 
 Si 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 even a hint of authenticity about it bore the most 
 depressing motto — 
 
 " Like Shadowes are we, 
 And like Shadowes depart " — 
 we gave up the idea of ever finding one to our 
 minds. 
 
 So The Other One took it upon himself to think. 
 For days he went about with dreamy eyes. He spent 
 hours in studying diagrams, puzzling treatises on 
 "Dialling," and he came out from the struggle 
 victorious. 
 
 " It can be done, O Best Of All," he exclaimed 
 one evening, bringing his clenched fist down on an 
 uninteresting-looking volume, — " it can be done ! 
 We shall make our own sun-dial, and before long 
 our Garden will have its Soul 1 " 
 
 That took away all doubt from my mind. The 
 Other One never says anything in that tone of voice, 
 and with a loud thumping of whatever happens to be 
 under his fist, without bringing to pass that particular 
 thing determined upon. If, sometime in like manner, 
 he should tell me the world could be moved, and that 
 he had discovered the point at which to apply the 
 lever, I would say, unquestioningly : — 
 
 " I beheve you, O Other One, and while you are 
 going for your lever I shall run right up to Mars to 
 get a fii-ont seat where I can see to advantage." 
 
 So, after his present statement, I said, 
 
 55 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " I believe you, O Other One, and while you are 
 looking after the construction of the dial I shall 
 look up a suitable and perfectly pink inscription for 
 it." 
 
 The mountain-daisies still were peeping their rosy 
 faces out of the grass, — for mountain-daisies last a 
 long time, — when The Soul of the Garden was ready 
 for setting up. 
 
 The base was unique, for while we greatly admired 
 and respected the quaint and often elaborate designs 
 of the pedestals of the ancient dials pictured in the 
 books, we desired to have our own an original one 
 in form, for we wished to avoid even the appearance 
 of copying the work of another. Therefore the 
 pedestal of our dial consisted not of a beautifully 
 hewn stone, nor of a pillar of marble ; but for the 
 foundation we used the broad, lower section of an 
 old flower-urn that had been an inhabitant of the 
 place longer than we, and upon this we piled stones 
 of irregular shapes and sizes, collected from our 
 estate. They meant more to us than a fine block 
 of some material foreign to our soU would have 
 meant, and we piled the stones carefully and firmly. 
 The Other One even insisted on seeing that they 
 were artificially strengthened into a whole, so that 
 time and the weather would not dislodge one stone 
 from its place. He had another scheme, too, — a 
 secret scheme, — in regard to the pedestal, but that 
 
 56 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 comes later. The top slab on which the gnomon 
 and plate were to be fixed, was likewise a home pro- 
 duct. That is, we took it from an old quarry on 
 the estate. The stone itself must have made its 
 appearance during an upheaval of the earth, cen- 
 turies ago, or it may have been brought hither by 
 some glacier of an early period; at any rate, it 
 was unhke anything else in the quarry, being much 
 harder than the outcropping rock of the place. And 
 as it looked as though such a thing as crumbling 
 were impossible, we selected it for the top of our 
 dial. 
 
 I know nothing whatever about the scientific cal- 
 culations necessary to the placing of the gnomon and 
 the marking off of a dial, but The Other One talked 
 much of latitude, angles, degrees, and so on, and at 
 first the only clear bit of information I could get out 
 of his unintelligible jargon was, that the gnomon 
 must be parallel to the polar axis of the earth, — 
 or, in other words, it always must point to the pole- 
 star. I found out afterward that the best material 
 for a horizontal dial is brass, and that The Other 
 One had taken care to have ours made of this metal. 
 He followed the directions of one of the authorities 
 for the fixing of a horizontal sun-dial, and the result 
 was that we had as nearly accurate an instrument as 
 it was possible to get. 
 
 A certain writer on the subject of sun-dials has 
 
 57 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 said : " An ugly sun-dial or a sense- 
 less motto are alike rare." There 
 may be some whp would say to 
 themselves, if not to us, that our 
 sun-dial was an ugly one, whatever 
 they might say about the motto, 
 but, as the same writer says, " There 
 are as many differences of opinion 
 as there are diiFerepces of character 
 in those who read them " (the sun- 
 dials). " We who have studied them 
 for so many years," she goes on, 
 " feel with Charles Lamb, that they 
 are ' more touching than tombstones,' 
 while to other people they seem flat, 
 stale, and unprofitable." 
 
 To us our Sun-Dial meant much. 
 We did not find it " flat, stale, and 
 unprofitable." 
 
 The motto was a difficult matter, 
 after all. I had supposed that The 
 Other One's part oi the work would 
 be the harder to perform, and that 
 the mere deciding upon an inscrip- 
 tion would be play in comparison; 
 but I found that my task was far 
 from being an easy one. 
 
 I searched through all the inscrip- 
 
 S8 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 tions I could find. Perhaps I de- 
 manded too much, but I found few 
 that gave me any real pleasure. I 
 wanted nothing to suggest unpleas- 
 ant things to the mind, — nothing 
 of the sadness of the passing of 
 Time, — and I found so many in- 
 scriptions quaint and charming, but 
 with the minor note I did not wish^ 
 For instance, it would not add to 
 my happiness to be informed that — 
 
 " Every Hour Shortens Life," 
 
 or that — 
 
 " As a shadow are we." 
 
 "Remember that thou must die," 
 
 and, ■ 
 
 " Thus Life slips away,' 
 
 were gloomy things for a garden. I 
 rejected 
 
 " While we have time let us do good," 
 
 because it suggested that the horn- 
 would come when we would not 
 have time. 
 
 " Let the day be without strife,'' 
 
 was not cheerful enough to suit me. 
 
 59 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 The word " strife " never should be so much as 
 mentioned in my Pink Garden. 
 
 "Let the slight shadow teach thee wisdom" 
 was too solemn. 
 
 "I count the bright hours only," 
 hinted at the existence of dark hours. Even the 
 more gentle one, 
 
 "Sine sole sileo, — Without the sun I am silent," 
 did not appeal to me as I wanted it to do. 
 
 In my hunt for the ideal motto, I came across an 
 odd one : 
 
 "Goa bou tyo urb us in ess. 1838." 
 Glancing over the description of if, I found it was 
 more easy to decipher than I supposed, — that it 
 really read : 
 
 "Go about your business," 
 and was so engraved as to make one think it proba- 
 bly a Welsh motto. The words were placed on this 
 dial at the order of a certain Dean who had a cross 
 gardener "who protected his master from trouble- 
 some visitors by saying to every one he saw near the 
 place, ' Go about your own business.' " The motto 
 was to the point but would not do in my Garden. 
 That was the one spot in which I should refuse to 
 go about my own business. 
 "Die Sonne scheinet ilberaU, — The sun shines everywhere," 
 
 taken from a dial in a villa garden on the Lake of 
 
 60 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Lugano, was a happy one and really was the first to 
 leave out the tone of sadness. 
 
 "Moved by the light," 
 was a gentle, grandmotherly sort of an inscription. 
 There was a sedate, old, grandfatherly one to be 
 classed with this. It is said to have been taken 
 from the "Aurelia" of Greville J. Chester. The 
 description alone, was fascinating, as quoted by the 
 collector : 
 
 " ... inside the old espaliers, drooping with 
 russet apples and jargonelle pears, a double row of 
 Hollyhock-spires of flame, and rose-colour, and prim- 
 rose, and white, and crimson, each as big almost as 
 the spire of a modern ' district ' church ; and within 
 these again white lilies — worthy, methinks, of the 
 Virgin Mother of God, the meek maid Mary — and 
 golden Aaron's rod, and Canterbury bells, brought 
 from my Lord Archbishop's garden at Addington in 
 flowery Kent, and Bee larkspurs, and Prince's feath- 
 ers, and later on in the year, tufts of purple, golden- 
 eyed Michaelmas daisies ; and at the end of all, upon 
 a lump of turf, stood a grey, time-tinged sun-dial, 
 inscribed on its four sides with the quaint distiches 
 devised by Bishop Edmund RedjTigton who set it 
 up A. D. 1665. ' 
 
 There was a picture of the design of the dial, 
 square, and with two lines of the grandfatherly 
 inscription on each side of the stone, as follows : — 
 
 61 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Amyddst ye ffloweres 
 I tell ye houres. 
 
 i ^ 
 
 ft ^ 
 
 M r9 
 
 
 03 
 
 02 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 02 
 
 en 
 
 o 
 
 Si 
 
 Beyond ye tombe, 
 Ffresh fflowrets bloome. 
 
 But even the soft-eyed grand- 
 motherly, and the sedate grand- 
 fatherly inscriptions touched me not 
 as I wished to be touched. 
 
 So many writers of inscriptions 
 make one feel that they have missed 
 the true meaning of the dial. They 
 forgot that which makes the instru- 
 ment a means of service, and their 
 words are far more appropriate to 
 a shadow-dial than to a sun-diisl. 
 The exceptions to this rule are not 
 many, and it seemed a relief when- 
 ever one of these exceptions bravely 
 stood out from his more earthly 
 companions. 
 
 62 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Then I looked up Japanese sun- 
 dials; for, thought I, with the Jap- 
 anese everything is beautiful. Again 
 I was disappointed, for although one,: 
 who was long a resident there spoke 
 of finding sun-dials in Japan, yet 
 these dials were not fixtures, and 
 they had no mottoes as did the dials 
 of Europe. The Japanese had small, 
 portable dials made of bronze, and 
 these they carried with them ; but 
 the writer said he saw only one large, " 
 fixed sun-dial there, and that at a 
 watch-maker's shop in Yokohama. 
 The watch-maker " made use of a 
 railing round his shop as a kind of 
 dial according to which he adjusted 
 his watches. The shadow of the 
 railing had been previously adjusted^ 
 and was marked off after the Saturday 
 gun from the flagship." 
 
 However I know that if the Japan^ 
 ese ever had had fixed sun-dials, 
 there would have been fewer inscrip- 
 tions of the sun-forgetting class, and 
 more of such as would make one feel 
 that joy already mentioned in a pre- 
 vious chapter, — the joy which comeS 
 
 63 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 like a dreamy, foreign, bambooy, rice-papery, em- 
 broidered aroma, and causes one to know the hap- 
 piness of the glorious, gorgeous bird swinging upside 
 down from a gold-thread vine bearing six wistaria 
 sprays of six different colors, and seven chrysanthe- 
 mums, no two of which are of the same hue. 
 
 It became evident that my inscription, like the 
 dial itself, must be original. But to select from 
 my queer assortment of ideas one that I must be 
 satisfied to look upon all the rest of my days seemed 
 an impossibiUty. Whenever I thought I had the 
 very one, some httle doubt would preep in to spoil 
 my motto altogether. 
 
 Finally it came to me. I was feasting my eyes on 
 the pink mountain-daisies beginning to blossom in 
 the grass, and, as I lifted my gaze and saw the un- 
 finished pedestal in the middle of the sunlighted 
 garden, the words came forward and arranged them- 
 selves in my mind. I drew forth my paper and 
 pencil and wrote them down. 
 
 The Sun is King ; the Dial but Ms Slave, 
 Obedient to that stem, untiring Rule 
 That wisely Checks the Subject'^ Liberty. 
 The Sun is King ; the Dial but his Tool. 
 
 A Monarch, thou ; thy Kingdom is thy Life, 
 Which thou wast Born to Govern Royally. 
 Ne''er Throw aside thy Crown ; be Vigilant ; 
 Thy Kingdom Rule, nor let it Conquer thee. 
 
 64 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Then I arranged them as the words of the sedate, 
 grandfatherly inscription had been arranged, thus : — 
 
 The Sun is King ; the Dial but his Slave, 
 Obedient to that stern, untiring Rule 
 
 tr cr 
 
 ^ :r 
 
 a o 
 
 -• £1. 
 
 t=^ rt- I-" 
 
 E ^ 
 
 &a 
 
 CT to" 
 I— '• 
 
 H 5: 
 
 O CD 
 O l-S 
 
 III 
 
 +J 
 
 3^ 
 
 g 
 
 (U 
 
 % 
 
 b 
 
 > 
 
 3 
 
 3? 
 
 a 
 
 ri3 
 
 
 
 ..^ 
 
 
 
 d 
 
 -|j 
 
 1 
 
 1—^ 
 
 
 
 ;h 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 4J 
 
 <u 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 TJ 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 w 
 
 (U 
 
 >. 
 
 "u 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ H 
 
 A Monarch, thou ; thy Kingdom is thy Life, 
 Which thou wast Born to Govern Royally. 
 
 The Other One was coming toward me, down a 
 pathway in The Pink Garden. T think he was about 
 to make some light remark, but he checked himself, 
 and gave a whistle of surprise. 
 
 65 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Hello I " he said slowly. " You have it, or I am 
 no prophet." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said I. " You speak as 
 though I might be coming down with the chicken- 
 pox." 
 
 " No, not that," he answered. " What you have 
 is written on the paper in your hand, — don't deny 
 it. You have your inscription for the dial, and it 
 is one which satisfies you, — that I can teU as plainly 
 as though you had said it in so many words. I 
 know more, too. I know that your motto is not a 
 firivolous one, nor yet of a character to make a person 
 pull a long face. It is a true Pink." 
 
 " That is for you to judge," said I. " Let us take 
 a turn in Spring-beauty Lane." 
 
 66 
 
INTERMEZZO 
 
 THE GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 WE walked toward the 
 woods at the back of 
 The Garden. Here we 
 came to an old, gray, board fence 
 covered with lichens. It was as 
 though they had crawled up out 
 of the woods to peep into The 
 Pink Garden. 
 
 I had sent special invitations to 
 some of this Spring-beauties to 
 come through the fence, and they 
 were on hand, in a long row the 
 length of The Garden, shyly 
 crowded together, and cuddled 
 up close to the fence, ready to 
 back under if the outer life proved 
 too exciting. We smiled at them 
 reassuringly, and climbed over 
 into The Lane bordered with their 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 Spring-beauty Lane ran along 
 back of our Garden, and extended 
 from a pathway in Vibgyor to a 
 country road at the edge of our 
 estate. 
 
 We walked a short distance, 
 until we came to The Crow's Nest. 
 
 67 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 This, really, is not a nest at all, — that is, no crows 
 have lived here, that we know anything about, — 
 but it is a Grandfather Oak-tree, so old that he does 
 not know what his age was when he last remem- 
 bered it. A flight of steps, covered with some more 
 of the inquisitive lichens, ascends to a platform built 
 between the heavy arms of the tree, and another 
 flight of steps leads to another platform still higher. 
 To this higher platform we went, and seated our- 
 selves on a crude bench between two branches. 
 
 The leaves were not yet an obstruction to our 
 view, and we could overlook the whole of The Pink 
 Garden. We could not help laughing aloud like two 
 children who had succeeded in obtaining some good 
 thing they had not expected to have. 
 
 When The Idea happened, it had been too late to 
 make elaborate plans for the first .pink inhabitants, 
 and there now were only four varieties in sight. We 
 saw the green lawn dotted with pink mountain-daisy 
 stars, — mere spots, from where we were. Every 
 path was heavily bordered with pink hyacinths, — 
 huge spikes in every shade of pink known to hya- 
 cinths : single flowers and double flowers, and all 
 glad to be together, — a pink company filling the air 
 with a pink fragrance. Then there were beds and 
 beds of pink tulips, — that is, striped pink and white 
 ones, for we could not escape the white and still 
 have tuhps, the only plain pink ones being rare, and, 
 
 68 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 after all, more of a lavender than a pink. But our 
 tulips were pink in effect, and gave no oiFence in our 
 scheme. The bright, modest Spring-beauties against 
 the fence were the only others present, and these four 
 made up our Pink Garden at its first appearance. 
 
 We feasted our eyes in silence. We drew long 
 breaths of hyacinth and tulip, and we felt a rosy 
 glow steal to our very finger-tips. 
 
 Then The Other One asked to see what I had 
 written for The Sun-Dial. He read it, and the light 
 in his eyes told me that he approved. 
 
 " I told you," said he, softly, " that I knew it was 
 not frivolous." 
 
 " O Other One," I answered, " to stand aU alone 
 in The Pink Garden ; to look upon the glorious sun ; 
 and then, to write a few flippant words to be carved 
 into The Soul of The Garden, was an impossible 
 thing." 
 
 " I told you, too, O Best Of AU, that what you 
 had written was not of a character to make one pull 
 a long face." 
 
 Then I told The Other One how, as the sunlight 
 came down into The Pink Garden^ and lifted every 
 blossom's gaze, my mind dwelt upon a sermon 
 preached during the Epiphany season, the last 
 Epiphany before our marriage. The chancel was 
 still hung with ropes of Christmas greens. I saw 
 it all clearly, and I heard the rector's voice saying 
 
 69 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 that we were meant to be Kings, — to lead noble, 
 royal lives, governing them, and refusing, even for a 
 moment, to let them govern us ; Kings, obedient, as 
 is the sun, to the great King of all, 
 
 " That," said The Other One, slowly, after we had 
 sat absorbing the beauty and the fragrance of The 
 Garden for a long time, — "that inscription is a 
 Royal Pink, O Best Of AU." 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A SUN-DIAL OF NOTE 
 
 VIBGYORA came to look 
 at The Sun-Dial pedestaL 
 I asked her what she 
 thought of the idea of having a 
 sun-dial in The Pink Garden. 
 
 "Well," said she, "I s'pose it 
 wUl be a great addition. It'U 
 make your Garden look real styl- 
 ish, too. But there's one thing 
 I 'm glad of, about the way 
 you 're having it set up, and that 
 is you ain't a-going to wear your- 
 self out trapesing all over the 
 world to get somebody else's old, 
 cast-oif pedestal. There ain't 
 nothing more silly to my mind 
 than collecting things that be- 
 longed to other folkses' grand- 
 mothers. Why, what good are 
 they when you get them ? I 'd like 
 to know. You can't take no 
 kind of comfort out of them, for 
 they did n't belong to your grand- 
 mother. You can't look at a 
 thing you buy that way and say, 
 
 — ' Yes, I think the world of that 
 
 ri 
 
 
 * 
 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 plate because my great-grandmother, — she that was 
 Patty Avery, ■^- used to eat off of it.' No, you can't 
 say nothing hke that, for you don't know whose 
 great-grandmother ate off of it, nor even if it was 
 old enough for anybody's grfeat-grandmother to have 
 eat off of it. All folks seem to be doing, nowadays, 
 is deceiving. They waste the good of their brains 
 trying to imitate some old cheap stuff their ances- 
 tors used (being unable to get better in the times in 
 which they lived), instead of going to work and 
 using their wits to make all the beautiful, elegant 
 things that modern inventions have shown them 
 how to make. No, sir I I have a perfect love and 
 regard for my great-grandmother's things, and 
 I 'm a-going to keep her relics as long as I live ; 
 but, that shan't prevent my paying my respects 
 to the new thing that is made so much handsomer 
 and with more understanding than the old ones 
 was. 
 
 " Now, your pedestal here shows that you 've got 
 common sense. Why you know where every stone 
 came from, and I don't remember the time when I 
 ain't seen the bottom of that old flower-urn around 
 this place. It used to set out by one of the gate- 
 ways when I was a girl, and even if it didn 't belong 
 to one of your great-grandmothers, it used to belong 
 to old Madam Other One, so that 's about the same 
 thing, for when you took him you took all that ever 
 
 T2 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 belonged to him, and I s'pose that includes the 
 grandmothers as well." 
 
 " And don't you think," I went on enthusiastically, 
 " it will be fine to teU the time by the sun in such a 
 quaint way ? It seems so suitable for a garden, and 
 especially for a Garden in Pink." 
 
 " Well, yes," said she, slowly, " but, land I A sun- 
 dial ain't good for nothing else but a garden. You 
 couldn't boil no egg by one of them things, for 
 instance, and tell when that egg was just hard 
 enough by watching the shadow, — and, s'posing 
 'twas a cloudy day ! Why, if you had to depend 
 on a dial, you'd have to go without eggs, or guess 
 when they was done to suit. A sun-dial may be 
 all right for some folks, but for the common run of 
 mortals a clock 's the safest thing, and for most folks 
 an alarm clock at that, I say I But I will allow that 
 if you're off a-berrying in the fields, and want to 
 get back home time to do something or other, it is 
 mighty handy to be able to tell by the way the sun 
 stands about what time it is likely to be. If you 're 
 real used to the looks of your meadows, you can teU 
 pretty near by the position of the sun. Toward late 
 afternoon you can easy guess by the slant of the 
 shadows when it's milking time. But, say, Mis' 
 Best Of All, you would n't really have needed to go 
 to the expense of no dial at all, for you see you 'd 
 soon get to know the time by the shadow of the 
 
 73 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 pedestal itself on the ground. You 
 could note what hour the shadow 
 stood across this here path, for in- 
 stance, and then take account of the 
 time it showed on that path ; but 
 that wouldn't be so easy at first, 
 and I s'pose, after all, it would be 
 more correct to have a reg'lar dial 
 and have the hours marked off so 
 you wouldn't have to remember, 
 — 'twould make the pedestal look 
 finished, too. Yes, I really do 
 think The Sun-Dial is most suitable 
 for you and for your Pink Garden. 
 And now, if you please, Mis' Best 
 Of All, I '11 show you that there 's 
 a sun-dial in my domains, too. You 
 come and see ! " 
 
 We went to the other gardens 
 and entered the very heart of Vib- 
 gybr. Here she paused before a 
 large pUe of stones. 
 
 " There ! " said she, triumphantly. 
 " That 's my sun-dial ! I can tell 
 pretty near what time it is this very 
 minute, too ! Let me see," and she 
 looked at the shadow on the ground, 
 at one side of the pUe. " It 's likely 
 
 74 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 to be about eleven o'clock, I should 
 say." 
 
 "You are a good guesser, Vib- 
 gyora," said I, glancing at my watch, 
 " it is a quarter of eleven." 
 
 " There, now, I told you that was 
 a good sun-dial I " said she, " If 
 you '11 excuse my working, 1 11 do 
 some more weeding here, and then 
 I must run home and get my din- 
 ner a-going. Had things aU ready 
 'fore I come over this morning, but 
 there's always lots of little things 
 to see to you don't count on." 
 
 Now, Vibgyora's sun-dial is of 
 no little importance, after all, and 
 caUs for an explanation; for, if I 
 say nothing further about it, some 
 one surely will wonder why a huge 
 pile of stones is allowed to stand 
 in the centre of any garden. This 
 explanation, too, is no small matter, 
 for one cannot learn the meaning of 
 this pile of stones without having td 
 become better acquainted with the 
 whole place itself, — a description I 
 had thought to omit, but the blame 
 lies at Vibgyora's door I 
 
 7S 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Know, then, that in years agone this estate, known 
 as Glencairn Hall, was owned by the ancestors of 
 The Other One. Through some difficulty or other 
 the place passed into the hands of a stranger and for 
 many years remained in the possession of others, 
 until it was bought recently by The Other One him- 
 self. The Strangers dealt kindly with aU that per- 
 tains to Glencairn Hall, and we owe them much 
 gratitude for their care. The ancient knocker is still 
 in place on the front door, and the name above, 
 " Glencairn Hall," never has been removed. Nor 
 has the wood-work been spoiled by any " doing 
 over," and the large, old-fashioned rooms, with much 
 of their valuable furniture, are as handsome as even 
 old " Madam Other One " would wish. 
 
 It is to the further kindness of The Strangers that 
 we owe our good fortune in becoming the owners of 
 the ancient book in which Madam wrote down her 
 private thoughts of the place and its visitors. This 
 record was kept in one of the old cabinets and was 
 unmolested because it was a book that truly belonged 
 to Glencairn Hall. 
 
 " This day," wrote Madam, in the early Spring of 
 1796, " we have had an honorable visitor, — one Mr. 
 Galbraith Winston, who had but a few houres to 
 remain with us, but has promised to give us the 
 pleasure of his companionship for some weeks in the 
 Summer-time. It being a mild day, we walked 
 
 76 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 through the grounds to the woods where is the Glen 
 that partly names the place. Mr. Winston said that 
 he should likewise desire to see The Cairn, but of a 
 Cairn, I knew not, unless, mayhap, there was once 
 such a Cairn by the old stone-quarries, and this I 
 told him. But he insisted that there should be a 
 Cairn, and taking a large stone in his arms, him- 
 self bore it from The Glen to the gardens, where he 
 placed it in the middle, saying it should be the be- 
 ginning of our Cairn, and that when he came again 
 he would add yet another stone. The thing taking 
 my fancy, I myself brought from The Glen a second 
 stone, and in like manner did my good husband. 
 We were then, all too soon, summoned to dine, as 
 Mr. Winston must depart immediately afterward. It 
 being yet too early for outdoor things, the table had 
 hot-house floweres instead, — some unusually fine, 
 pink roses," 
 
 So The Cairn was started by one Mr. Galbraith 
 Winston, whose first stone at this minute lies some- 
 where under the huge mound. The Stranger said 
 that the pile was of considerable size when the estate 
 passed into the hands of his family, and The Cairn 
 they left undisturbed. I think that Mr. Galbraith 
 Winston was of the right sort, and how I should 
 love to show him The Pink Garden ! 
 
 When The Other One and I learned the meaning 
 of our Cairn, we, too, added each a* stone from The 
 
 78 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Glen in the woods, and every visitor, — that is, every 
 pink visitor, — has the honor of adding a stone also, 
 with the further pleasure of hearing how Glencaim 
 HaU earned the second part of its first name. 
 
 When gardening had begun under our reign, Gio- 
 vanni Pincolini had wanted to cart these stones off, 
 and cast them over the bank, — for= our estate is on 
 a very high bank, indeed, and Vibgyor overlooks a 
 beautiful river, — but The Other One and I would 
 not sanction such a misdeed, and it was not until 
 we had both explained to Giovanni Pincolini why 
 we would not, for the world, have one stone dis- 
 turbed, and I had even brought forth The Ancient 
 Book, and read aloud to our worthy gardener the 
 portion relating to the origin of The Cairn, that 
 he consented to desist from his wild purpose. And 
 thereafter I ceased to tremble at the sight of Gio- 
 vanni trundling a wheel-barrow, nor feared to find, 
 some morning, my Cairn a thing of the past. 
 
 " A cairn, is it, you call that pile ? " asked Vib- 
 gyora, at the time we were discussing with Giovanni 
 its right to remain. " A cairn, is it ? Well, I don't 
 know the meaning of the word, I 'm sure, but I do 
 know they say old Madam Other One was just as 
 partic'lar as you be, about not having them stones 
 molested, so I s'pose it 's a kind of duty of yours to 
 have them took care of, — though for myself, I 
 should prefer to have some kind of plants a-growing 
 
 79 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 around in the spaces and niches. It 
 would sort of take away the feeling 
 that when you come right down to 
 plain facts, they ain't nothing but 
 a pile of stones, after all. I don't 
 wonder you give them a fancy name 
 if you 've got to keep them always 
 before your face a,nd eyes. They 
 do clutter up the garden terrible ! " 
 
 But The Other One and I gloried 
 in our Cairn, and we gently held the 
 surrounding garden within bounds, 
 lest the posies cree]p too near to our 
 Mend, and encroach upon his terri- 
 tory. I would have nothing planted 
 in the " spaces and jniches," to cover 
 up a single stone, and when Vib- 
 gyora, though she pretended to scoff 
 at the idea of having the hours 
 poetically measured off, discovered 
 that the mound was useful as a 
 gnomon, she was content to give 
 up the vision of her miniature vol- 
 cano boiling over with vines at the 
 top, and bubbhng forth flowery 
 breaths from fissures in the sides. 
 
 And The Cairn now stands out 
 
 boldly, and shows his authority over 
 
 so. 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 a Few Mortals in a Garden, for he 
 knows his importance as well as any 
 one does. Ever, he seems to be hs- 
 tening for a sound of far-off music, 
 — the music of The Stream in The 
 Glen of the Distant Woods ; and 
 sometimes I think he hears the 
 murmuring of the water, as it goes 
 splashing along in its narrow bed, 
 and babbles merrily its curious tales, 
 as it hurries onward. But the stones 
 in The Glen say nothing to the fool- 
 ish streamlet, for their thoughts are 
 dwelling on the honor that in the 
 future may be theirs. What, think 
 they, is the frivolous pleasure of a 
 siUy Brook, to the joy and dignity 
 of a Cairn, — a Cairn of which the 
 old, gray stones have good reason to 
 hope they may become a part ! 
 
 It is thus Vibgyora and her sun- 
 dial have introduced The Glen and 
 The Cairn, so you must not, — 
 
 But I am glad that " one Mr. Gal- 
 braith Winston " on that historic 
 visit found the table at Glencairn 
 Hall decked with "some unusually 
 fine, pink roses " I 
 
 81 
 
CHAPTER VIll 
 
 A FOUR-VOICED FUGUE, BUTTER- 
 FLIES, AND FELIX 
 
 SPEAKING of pink roses 
 takes me back to my 
 Garden. 
 For a little while The Garden 
 remained a Fugue in Four Voices, 
 The Prelude having been sounded 
 first by the arbutus under the 
 trees, in those early Spring days. 
 After The Prelude came The 
 Theme, given out gently by the 
 Spring-beauties at the edge of 
 The Woods. Then came The 
 Response when the first mountain- 
 daisies answered The Theme after 
 their own fashion, — it may have 
 been a fifth color-tone instead 
 of a fifth musical tone above ; 
 nevertheless, The Response was 
 correctly given. Then the taU, 
 slim tenor tulips took up The 
 Theme, and no sooner had pro- 
 claimed it than the rich, fuU, 
 heavy bass of the fragrant hya- 
 cinths came out boldly and claimed 
 the attention, whUe the other 
 voices for the moment kept up a 
 
 89 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 subdued and harmonious accompaniment, one or an- 
 other of them coming out with The Theme whenever 
 possible to get a distinct voice in the matter. 
 
 It was wonderful! Bach himself would have 
 laughed with delight at the way in which The Theme 
 was carried out in these Four Voices. The Counter- 
 point would have warmed his very soul, and he would 
 have tried to write out for the world this Four-voiced 
 Fugue in Pink, and would not have failed ; for by 
 Bach even so seemingly impossible a thing would 
 have been accomplished. He would have been 
 able to make one see the Spring-beauties by the 
 fence next to The Woods, the round, pink mountain- 
 daisies in the grass, the slender-stemmed tulips 
 slowly opening in the beds, and the healthy young 
 hyacinths bursting their plump buds in the borders 
 of the paths. 
 
 So the four were having their own way about it ; 
 but they had lost the timidity with which they had 
 begun The Theme, and no longer waited one for 
 another in subdued harmony, so that The Theme 
 seemed to be rushing in between breaths, and The 
 Answer came before it was looked for. No wonder I 
 The Subject was inverted, dragged in head over 
 heels so unexpectedly that the apple and peach 
 blossoms, just visible in the orchards at some dis- 
 tance, laughed at the state of affairs till they wept 
 pink tears all about on the ground. 
 
 83 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 It was in the midst of this grand Stretto that a 
 pale pink rose opened her eyes and said : 
 
 " Well, of all luUabys this is the most invigorating 
 I have ever heard or dreamed of 1 What rose could 
 sleep in the midst of such inspiration as that?" 
 
 Then she imfolded her moist, sweet, crumpled 
 petals, and The Fugue in Four Voices was at an end. 
 
 The Other One and I had not missed a day in The 
 Pink Garden since the Spring-beauties began The 
 Theme. We had listened to The Fugue from 
 The Crow's Nest, where none would disturb our 
 peace; we had visited The Garden so early in the 
 morning that Vibgyora had declared I would get 
 "drownded in the dew"; we had lingered there 
 later than one ordinarily cares to linger at the close 
 of Spring days ; and the melody had become a part 
 of our very being. And so it was that we were 
 present when the pale pink rose, after making the 
 remark already mentioned, unfolded her moist, sweet, 
 crumpled petals, and began The Garden Symphony. 
 We would not have missed this simple beginning 
 for worlds. 
 
 We were most fortunate in having had so many 
 pink flowers in our gardens of the previous Summer ; 
 otherwise we should have had to wait another year 
 for some of our pink flowers, — those that do not 
 blossom the first season of their growth. As it was, 
 Giovanni had not lost a necessary moment in search- 
 
 84 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 ing out all such plants as need a year's experience 
 in the garden before they wiU condescend to bloom, 
 — for all the world. The Other One says, Hke the 
 servant who, with head in air, looked about and said, 
 " Well, I think you '11 suit me, so I'll stay." With 
 further additions from the gardens of the florists we 
 were able to have The Garden more pink than 
 would have been possible if we had been obliged to 
 begin at the very beginning. 
 
 " It 's a kind of relief," said Giovanni Pincolini, 
 with a sigh, " not to have all them animal-flowers in 
 here. They're more to home with Vibgyory, and 
 it 's more suitable to have 'em back of the house 
 with all them bright-colored things, anyway." 
 
 "Animal-flowers, Giovanni ! " said I. " What can 
 you mean by that expression ? " 
 
 " Just animal-flowers," said he with a smile. 
 
 " Then explain your meaning this instant ! " I 
 commanded. 
 
 A wicked twinkle came into his eye. 
 
 "Well," he answered slowly, "there's monkey- 
 plants, and there 's cockscomb, and there 's snap- 
 dragons ; they 're animal-flowers, I reckon, and they 
 ain't here no more." 
 
 " Well, yes," 1 said, " but there 's larkspur and 
 there 's foxglove and there 's dog-rose in The Pink 
 Garden this minute, and all in pink dress, too. You 
 have not succeeded in getting rid of them, and 1 m 
 
 8S 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 sure they have as much right to your 
 title 'animal-flowers' as any of the 
 blossoms you have named." 
 
 " That 's so," he said, scratching 
 his head and looking foolish. "I 
 guess you 've got the best of me 
 there, for I clean forgot them things 
 you named. But aiiyway," he added, 
 in a relieved tone, " they 're excus- 
 able, seein' as they "ve got the proper 
 color." 
 
 It was such fun to watch aU the 
 new things in The Pink Garden as 
 they put forth leaf and bud, and 
 finally unclosed their pink petals in 
 the most innocent manner possible, 
 and looked happily out upon the 
 world! I often wondered if they 
 thought it strange not to see the 
 flowers of many colors about them, 
 and then I would say to myself, 
 " Why, no I How would they miss 
 blossoms they neVer have seen? 
 Surely, if they think anything at all, 
 their thoughts must be happy ones, 
 of the joy of being amongst com- 
 panions of their own hue. They 
 have no neighbors of brilliant, con- 
 
 86 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 trasting color to jar their delicate 
 nerves with bold, flaunting ways — 
 no, indeed ! Theirs is The Garden 
 of Peace where only harmony greets 
 each sensitive, little, pink blossom." 
 Rose after rose came forth and re- 
 joiced, and the honeysuckle invited 
 aU the humming-birds for miles 
 around, so that the air was a-quiver 
 with the rapid motion of many tiny 
 wings fluttering about the pale pink 
 clusters. The Other One, happen- 
 ing to see the vines when the com- 
 motion about them was unusually 
 great, said that at first glance he 
 thought the blossoms had taken to 
 themselves wings and were about to 
 soar away. The bees came to taste 
 the sweets of The Garden. The 
 honey-bees came first. It really was 
 very good of them to come at all, 
 and their appreciation touched me. 
 To leave a feast temptingly spread 
 among the clovers in the meadows 
 near by ; to forsake other wild, fi-a- 
 grant blossoms everywhere at hand ; 
 and even to slight the miscellaneous 
 sweets of Vibgyor for the more 
 
 87 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 delicate ones of The Pink Garden, clearly showed a 
 respect for my choice, and I should not at all have 
 been surprised to discover that those bees made 
 pink honey in pink combs. Later in the Summer 
 the large yellow and brown bumble-bees boomed as 
 lazily among the flowers of my Itahan Terrace as 
 ever their comfortable ancestors boomed in some 
 old-time garden. Bumble-bees may have yellow 
 coats, but their hearts underneath are a true pink. 
 
 Nearly every soft zephjrr brought butterflies float- 
 ing into The Garden. These frivolous idlers on 
 many-hued wings danced over the blossoms. Some- 
 times, for a moment, they would pause on a leaf to 
 make a survey of the place. Sometimes they would 
 sit entranced for a number of minutes, their beauti- 
 ful pinions at rest ; and sometimes they would hang 
 tenaciously to the tempting flowers, disputing earn- 
 estly with the bees over the hidden contents of the 
 pretty honey-jars. 
 
 Giovanni Pincolini came into The Garden in Pink 
 on one occasion, when the butterflies were more 
 than usually numerous. In his hand was an empty 
 bag made of sacking, and with this he began to 
 make wild flourishes about his head and to give 
 vicious thrusts at the gorgeous, winged visitors. 
 Consternation was manifested on the part of all of 
 the insects, and in a crowd they rose, — bees and but- 
 terflies together, — and made good their escape. 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Shoo, there ! Be off with ye, I say, you pesky 
 varmints ! " yelled Giovanni after the retreating 
 hosts. " If you think you 're a-goin' to have this 
 here Pink Garden alive with worms eatin' up the 
 flowers and foliage, you 're mighty much mistaken. 
 I bet I '11 fix up yoiu" plans with hellebore and Paris 
 green or somethin' 1 There won't bfe a green thing, 
 — nor a pink thing, neither, — worth lookin' at, if 
 you critters have your way ! " 
 
 " That is very rude of you, Giovanni Pincolini," 
 said I, addressing my gardener. " You have fright- 
 ened away a whole lot of innocent bees, and all that 
 lovely flock of butterflies, too, and I was enjoying 
 them so much I How could you ? " 
 
 « WeU, Mis' Best Of AU," said he, " I hain't 
 got no grudge against the bees, — they 're innocent 
 enough, as you say, and prob'ly do more good than 
 harm. I did n't intend to skeer them off, but they 
 sort of took pattern from them butterflies. Now 
 butterflies may be all very well to look at, and no 
 doubt they have their use in picture gardens, and are 
 good enough in po'try, but in real gardens they 're the 
 cause of more 'n half of the mischief that goes on. It 
 beats me why such destructive critters was ever made 
 to look so handsome. They're wolves in sheep's 
 clothing, as the Bible puts it. They never seem to 
 be doin' nothin' but flyin' about amongst the flowers 
 to show off their fine dresses like, and if they hold 
 
 90 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 still more 'n a second, all they 'pear to be doin', is 
 takin' a drink of honey from some blossom, but 
 they 're sly ones ! What they 're really lookin' out 
 for is the best place to lay their eggs, and whUe they're 
 flutterin' about so playfully, they 're keepin' their eyes 
 wide open, I can tell ye. If butterflies had been made 
 ugly instead of handsome, there 'd be fewer worms in 
 folk's gardens, — that's my opinion, for it 's the way of 
 most folks to judge a thing by the looks, and never 
 to go no deeper." 
 
 "Yes, Giovannni," said I with a sigh, "you are 
 right, and worms are not helpful in a garden. Be- 
 sides, I am so afraid of them I They make me 
 shudder when I see them, and I forget they are 
 ever so slightly related to the lovely butterflies." 
 
 Giovanni Pincolini was positively severe. He 
 gave me a lengthy talk on the vices of butterflies 
 and moths, as though he feared I would go back 
 to my former regard for them as soon as his back 
 was turned. How shocked he would be to know 
 that, in spite of all the sins he mentioned, I still love 
 butterflies I 
 
 As a "finally, brethren," he said, as he went off^ 
 about his work: 
 
 " Them butterflies don't belong in your Garden, 
 anyways, bein' as they ain't the right color, and you 
 just wait. Mis' Best Of All, — I '11 fix 'em for you ! 
 In the momin' I '11 see about the sprayin' ; and 
 
 91 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 when once I take the business in 
 hand, there won't be a worm on the 
 place, and them butterflies will find 
 out it won't pay to lay no eggs 
 around herel" 
 
 There was fire in Giovanni's eye. 
 I could feel it, and I felt, too, as 
 though I had been scolded. I stood 
 still for some minutes, in the path- 
 way, and held my breath for a httle. 
 To-morrow he would spray the plants 
 to prevent the eggs from hatching, 
 and to kin the worms, — the butter- 
 flies' children ! Well, there was one 
 comfort after aU. The eggs would 
 feel no pain, the worms would die 
 almost instantly, and the butterflies 
 themselves never would know. 1 
 took a few steps. At my feet lay 
 a large purple and golden butterfly, 
 its wings torn, and its body crushed 
 by one sweep of <Jiovanni's cruel 
 sack. I dug a hole imderneath one 
 of the sweetest roses I could find, 
 and buried the poor, silent creature. 
 
 Peace once more reigned in The 
 Pink Garden, and the bees and 
 butterflies were hovering again over 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the flowers. Butterflies may be sin-- 
 ful, as Giovanni said, but they bear 
 no ill-will toward any one, — and I 
 am sure that is more than can be 
 said of the bees. Upon a leaf of 
 one of the budding roses sat a white 
 moth with two feathery plumes on 
 his head. His wings were edged 
 with pink, — pink of a deep, positive 
 shade, and a little of the same hue 
 covered his soft, downy body. Ah, 
 he was a beauty 1 Never before had 
 I seen one like him. It seemed as 
 though he had been made to order 
 for my Garden. 1 thought of Gio- 
 vanni, and shivered. I hated to 
 send my new-found friend away 
 from his rightful home, for I knew 
 that my gardener would show no 
 more consideration for a pink moth 
 than for one of any other color. 
 But a brilliant scheme came into 
 my head. I would not send my 
 pink friend away from The Garden. 
 Instead, I would send Giovanni 
 PLncolini to the city across the 
 river, on errands that would keep 
 him away until late in the afternoon. 
 
 93 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 He should start immediately after breakfast, too. 
 The day after that would be Sunday, and so for two 
 whole days, and for three whole nights, the butter- 
 flies would have The Pink Garden for a playground. 
 
 " ' Ah ! Foiled again,' muttered the marsh man ! " 
 I cried aloud, shaking my fist toward the direction 
 Giovanni had taken, and laughing in high glee as I 
 danced up and down. 
 
 Up in a tree that nodded over one boundary of 
 my Terrace, I caught sight of another friend. He 
 was a bird about the size of a yellow-bird, but per- 
 haps a wee bit smaller, and he had a pale gray breast, 
 a blue-gray back, and black wings and throat. For 
 several days he had hung about The Pink Garden, 
 busily picking up bugs and tiny insects in the trees 
 and shrubs. I was glad I had not told Giovanni 
 about him. The only reason I had not mentioned 
 his presence, was that I feared Giovanni might make 
 fun of me for allowing a bird of that opposing hue 
 in my Pink Garden. My httle Mend was such a 
 gentle bird ! His bright eyes saw everything, and 
 he appreciated the delicate colors of the flowers, for 
 so often he nodded approvingly, and at almost any 
 hour of the day I would find him SQmewhere about. 
 He was so happy, that I named him Felix, and I 
 am sure Felix was no "wolf in sheep's clothing." 
 He might be looking for a place in which his mate 
 might have a snug nest for her eggs, but he meant 
 
 94 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 no harm. I looked at Felix, and promised that never, 
 so long as I had a Pink Garden, would I betray him 
 to Giovanni Pincolini ; and Felix nodded brightly, 
 and said that the promise ftdly assured him. Flitting 
 back and forth among the branches, he interested him- 
 self in the fragrant, flowering sprays, nor feared the 
 sort of spray that Giovanni was going to see about. 
 
 In the evening, I told The Other One about the 
 pink moth, half expecting to hear him exclaim that 
 I must have been dreaming. To my surprise, he 
 had known about pink moths for years. 
 
 " They are not common, by any means," said he, 
 " and this is not exactly the season for them. I 
 hardly should think of finding one here, at any rate. 
 It must have come out of compHment to your Pink 
 Garden." 
 
 "Well, he certainly matches the flowers," I 
 answered. 
 
 The Other One has a large cabinet of butterflies 
 and moths, but something happened to the one pink 
 moth in his collection. He asked me if I could tell 
 where I saw the one in my Garden, but although I 
 thought I could tell nearly where the moth had been, 
 I remembered the poor, dead butterfly underneath 
 one of the roses, and gave some indefinite answer in 
 an absent sort of way, hastily asking The Other One 
 to get his violin. His collection is stiU minus a 
 pink-tipped moth. 
 
 95 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A PASSING SHADOW 
 
 WHAT'S this?" asked 
 The Other One, throw- 
 ing himself down beside 
 me on a bench in The Pink 
 Garden, and picking up some 
 sheets of paper upon which 1 had 
 been writing. 
 
 " Look at the title, and you 
 will know what it 's about," I 
 answered. 
 
 "'A Passing Shadow,' " he read 
 aloud. " Is it a story ? The head- 
 ing sounds romantic enough." 
 
 " Yes, it is a story," said I, " and 
 a romantic one, too, but you never 
 can guess what it is about." 
 
 "Yes, I can," he replied em- 
 phatically. 
 
 " No, you cannot," I persisted. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I can guess, 
 though I may not be able to guess 
 correctly. At a venture, now, I 
 should say that on these sheets of 
 paper you have been doing some- 
 thing to The Sun-Dial." 
 
 " O, no, indeed, I have not 1 " I 
 said. " That title might make 
 
 96 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 one think of a sun-dial, but the story is about 
 two women named Theodora and Theodosia. 
 Vibgyora knew them herself, and told me so 
 many queer things about them that I feel as 
 though I knew them, too. It was this way. Yes- 
 terday morning, when I was sitting here in the 
 sunshine, Vibgyora came to consult me about some 
 flowers in her domain, and, lingering awhile after 
 receiving my instructions, she said suddenly: 
 
 " ' Do you know. Mis' Best Of AU, you make me 
 think of the Rogers twins, with aU your pink things 
 about you.' 
 
 " ' Who are they ? ' 1 asked, ' and what about their 
 pink things ? ' 
 
 " ' Why,' said she, ' when I was down to my old 
 home, takin' care of my sister that was so low with a 
 fever, some years ago, the Rogerses was in a dretful 
 predicament about buyin' a lot in the buryin'-ground, 
 and did n't want no one to know it, for they was 
 pretty close about their affairs. They used to take 
 a walk every day, up as fur as Turner's hop-house 
 and back, and that 's up on the old stone road, and a 
 little beyond the buryin'-ground. My sister aUers 
 knew their step as they come past our house, but 
 she 'd ask me who was a-comin', just the same, to 
 make sure. We should n't never have known about 
 their wantin' to buy a lot in the buryin'-ground if 
 one of 'em had n't died a little while ago. She was 
 
 97 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 buried down to Eden Centre, where their mother's 
 family used to Uve ; and then Theodory told how 
 they had planned to buy a lot in the buryin'-ground 
 on the stone road, and had even selected the one they 
 wanted, and planned to have nothin' but pink flowers 
 planted in it, and then they found some one else had 
 already bought it, and they was that tickled they 
 didn't know what to do. You see they'd got so 
 lugubrious and down-hearted ove< the thought of 
 buyin' such a thing that they both got it into their 
 minds they was goin' to die right off, and one of 'em 
 got real hysteriky. Then, when they found out the 
 lot they liked best was sold, it nearly killed 'em 
 with joy, and they went right on a-livin' as hard 
 as ever they could. Theodory's married now, too, 
 I hear. It 's lucky for her, now that Theodoshy 's 
 gone. Otherwise she 'd be terrible lonesome with 
 only an old cat to talk to.' 
 
 " When Vibgyora had returned to her gardens I 
 thought so hard about the story she had told me 
 that I had to write it out. Now please be good 
 enough to hsten while I read, and see if you think 
 Vibgyora ever would know her friends as they have 
 been made over," and I began this tale : 
 
 A PASSING SHADOW 
 
 "There's no use talkin', Theodosia Rogers, we've 
 got to buy a lot in the biuyin'-ground to be 
 
 98 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 respectable 1 I 've looked at the matter from every 
 point of view, to see if we could pqssibly get out of 
 doin' it, but there ain't no way, so we may as well 
 face the fact, and do our duty. Git your bunnit, — 
 I 've got mine, — and we '11 walk a piece down the 
 road past the buryin'-ground, real slow and kinder 
 careless like. I '11 look it over as much as I can 
 without attractin' notice, and when we've got up 
 as fur as Turner's hop-house we '11 come back, and 
 as you '11 be on the side of the road nearest the wall, 
 you look as hard as you can without appearin' to 
 see nothin', and hold your tongue till we get back 
 to the house ; and then while we 're hullin' some 
 berries for tea we can talk over what we 've decided 
 as the best lot to buy, and we can get it all settled 
 without havin' the news all through the town before 
 we 've fairly got it into our own heads. 'T won't 
 never do to have our affairs discussed till there 's 
 somethin' to discuss ! " 
 
 And so thought Theodosia. It was a peculiar 
 characteristic of the twin sisters that neither ruled 
 the other. Their minds were equally strong, or 
 equally weak, as the case might be. Therefore the 
 result would have been practically the same had 
 Theodosia instead of Theodora proposed the present 
 scheme, — the only difference being manifested in 
 the bonnet-pegs under the clock-shelf. In this case 
 it was the one at the left hand that first gave up 
 
 99 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 its possession of a green and white 
 checked sun-bonnet; whereas, had 
 the proposition come from the other 
 sister, the right-hand peg would have 
 been the first one required to do 
 the same thing. A minute later, 
 so absolutely alike were the two 
 figures that took the side path 
 leading out to the road, and so iden- 
 tical in expression were the slightly 
 flushed faces, in which a certain 
 eagerness was but partially sup- 
 pressed, that only the pegs under 
 the clock-shelf and the cat. Purr- 
 kins, — so called on accoimt of the 
 readiness with which he would sing 
 whenever stroked, — could have told 
 reaUy which sister had suggested 
 this innocent yet surreptitious tour 
 which meant so much to the house- 
 hold of Rogers. 
 
 " Who 's a-goin' by now, Cynthy ? " 
 came in weak, fretful tones, as the 
 sound of soft voices was heard 
 through the open window of the last 
 house before one reaches the stretch 
 of meadow next to the burying- 
 ground. 
 
 100 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Oh, it 's just the Rogerses goin' 
 up to the Turner hop-house and 
 back," was the answer; and this 
 served to show that it was no un- 
 common thing for the twins to take 
 the stroll upon which they were 
 now bent. But if their appearance 
 called forth no extraordinary com- 
 ment, they were inwardly as ner- 
 vous as though they were passing 
 down a long line of inquisitive 
 onlookers. 
 
 " I declare for it I " said Theodosia, 
 when they sat together on the side 
 porch, hulling the berries, " I 've 
 never before seen the time I wished 
 our walk was ended, but this after- 
 noon I was that worked up about 
 our errand, it seemed as though my 
 feet couldn't get me home quick 
 enough ! " 
 
 " And me, too ! " cried Theodora. 
 " I never, at this season of the year, 
 passed that Farnsworth meadow 
 without noticin' the smell of the field 
 strawberries ; but to-day I did n't 
 scent a whiff of 'em, or, if I did, 
 it must have come in one side of 
 
 101 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 my nose and gone out the other. Well, what did 
 you decide?" 
 
 "I thought," said Theodosia, 'Hhat the south- 
 ern corner where it's so warm aiid sunny would 
 be the most suitable, for it seemed so kinder cheer- 
 ful, not bein' under the evergreens nor within the 
 clutches of that cold-lookin' myrtle. What did you 
 decide?" 
 
 " I decided on the same spot," said Theodora, 
 " and for about the same reasons ; then, too, I was 
 thinkin' how pleasant it would be to lie so near 
 Farnsworth's meadow, with the field berries just the 
 other side of the wall and the sweet smell comin' 
 over, — why, what you cryin' for, Theodosia ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I 'm sure, only I can't bear to 
 think of our havin' to do anythin' so dreadful as 
 to buy a lot in a buryin'-ground."^ 
 
 " There, there, never mind," said Theodora, " it 's 
 a sight better than havin' no place at all, or what 
 other folks who don't care a mite about you are a 
 notion to select. How'd you hke it if you'd got 
 to be buried next to the Joneses, for instance ? " 
 
 " I could n't stand that," murmured Theodosia. 
 
 "Neither could I," went on Theodora, "and so, 
 it 's got to be for us to see that no such thing hap- 
 pens. We must remember the Rogers pride, and 
 make that brace us up for the ordeal." 
 
 " That 's so," returned Theodosia,: drying her eyes, 
 
 102 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " and the sooner it 's over the better. Guess we 'd 
 better close the bargain to-morrow." 
 
 However, it was a long time until the morrow, 
 and meanwhile the evening meal was prepared, and 
 silently was it eaten, a far-away look softening the 
 two pairs of gray eyes. 
 
 " Oh, deary me I " said Theodora, coming back 
 suddenly to the present, "have I had two helps of 
 berries or only one, Theodosia ? 'Cause, if I 've had 
 two it 's all I 'd ought to eat, and if I 've had only 
 one I 'd ought to have another." 
 
 "I, — I don't know, Theodora," repUed her sister, 
 " but it don't look as though there was many gone 
 out of the dish. I '11 give you some more, any- 
 way. They can't hurt a body that 's as fond of 'em 
 as you be." 
 
 " Well, I '11 try to keep track of these, for I don't 
 remember noticin' any taste to those I ate last." 
 
 The dishes were washed mechanically, Purrkins 
 fed, and the sisters sat quietly on the porch until 
 daylight turned to dusk and the dew began to make 
 itself felt. 
 
 " It 's gettin' real damp, Theodora, we 'd better go 
 in. Come, Purrkins ! " 
 
 "Purr-r-r!" said Purrkins, and the three went 
 inside. 
 
 For the first time since they could remember they 
 forgot to light the candles, but sat rocking by the long, 
 
 103 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 narrow window that extended nearly 
 across one side of the living-room. 
 Purrkins sat cuddled on the win- 
 dow-seat, halfway between the two 
 he loved, and gave his attention 
 alternately to each, turning his head 
 with blinking eyes first toward one 
 for a time and then toward the other. 
 As the decreasing Mght made his 
 outline slowly fade into the thicken- 
 ing gloom, only his loud purring in- 
 dicated toward which his comforting 
 song was directed. The sisters spoke 
 almost in whispers. 
 
 " Our lot shaU be well cared for, 
 at least, while we Hve," said Theo- 
 dora, "Have we decided on the 
 color of the roses we are to plant ? " 
 
 "Pink," returned Theodosia. " AH 
 must be pink ; it 's such a wonderful 
 satisfyin' color, — never jars on your 
 own nerves, nor on anybody else's, 
 some way. Whitens too doleful and 
 kinder harsh, and red 's top gay. 
 Yellow's kinder good, for it makes 
 you think of the sUnshine, but the 
 folks next to our lot might put some 
 color in theirs that would make a 
 
 104. 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 person bristle all over when he saw 
 our yeUow with it, and that would n't 
 do at all. We Ve never clashed with 
 folks in our lifetime, and we won't do 
 it after we're dead. There's blue, 
 but that 's too cold a color, and pink 
 is so restful 1 " 
 
 " That 's what I think," said Theo- 
 dora. " Besides, we 've always held 
 to that more than to any other shade, 
 and we can have flowering almonds 
 and pink daisies, — and it would be 
 perfectly beautiful to plant a row of 
 pink hyacinth bulbs around, to out- 
 line our lot I " 
 
 "So 'twould," said Theodosia. 
 " They 'd be so sweet in blossom 
 time." 
 
 The breath of the evening prim- 
 roses came in through the half-open 
 door. Theodora hated to shut out 
 the odor as she rose to lock the doors 
 and windows for the night. 
 
 The candles were lighted now, and 
 at the top of the stairs Theodosia 
 stopped to say, 
 
 " Theodora, come into the spare- 
 room a minute, — I want to speak to. 
 
 105 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 you about somethin' that 's in the bottom drawer of 
 the big bureau." 
 
 Together they tugged at the great glass knobs, and 
 with a reluctant groan the drawer opened. With 
 lifted candlesticks they peered into the depths of 
 the capacious affair, and Theodosia drew forth a 
 long crape veU, which she held up with trembling 
 fingers. 
 
 " That 's mother's veil she wore after father got 
 drowned at sea," said she ; " and I was thinkin' if I 
 should die first, you might — " 
 
 " Theodosia Rogers, what ails you ? " cried Theo- 
 dora. " Why, here we 've only just passed our 
 thirtieth birthday, and you a-talkin' about dyin' ! " 
 
 " Well, what are buryin'-lots for, Theodora, I 'd 
 hke to know?" 
 
 "Don't, Theodosia 1 If I 'd known how dreadful 
 blue it was goin' to make us, I 'd never spoke of 
 buyin' one. You go to bed, and I '11 make us some 
 catnip tea. Then, when Purrkins has had some, too, 
 I '11 bring him up. He '11 chirk you right up, and be 
 glad of the chance. I '11 'tend to the business to- 
 morrow, myself." 
 
 The next forenoon she started out on her errand ; 
 and when she returned, Theodosia ran down the path 
 to meet her. 
 
 " Do tell me it 's all settled at last, Theodora, and 
 I 'U not say another word about it ! " 
 
 106 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Yes, it is," replied Theodora. "Widow Whita- 
 ker 's bought it, and her husband's body is to be 
 brought here from the West and buried there. When 
 I heard that, I was in the post-office to see if we had 
 any mail, and they was talkin' it over. As I had n't 
 yet been to consult John Barker, no one knows we 
 even thought of havin' a lot." 
 
 " You don't say so ! " exclaimed Theodosia. 
 
 " Yes," went on Theodora, " and I never was so 
 thankful for anythin' in my Ufe. I 'm thinkin' we 'U 
 be buried with mother's folks, any way, over in Eden 
 Centre ; and that 's a beautiful place, so we need n't 
 worry." 
 
 " But it 's kinder too bad to have to give up the 
 pink things in that old south comer, ain't it ? " asked 
 Theodosia, softly. 
 
 "We needn't give them up, Theodosia. Widow 
 Whitaker has got no more taste than the Joneses 
 about some things, and we 've got so many flowers, 
 and she 's so forlorn, she 'd love to have us take that 
 much interest in her. We can show folks what's 
 what in that buryin'-groundl" 
 
 That afternoon the twins went to the Turner hop- 
 house and back. 
 
 " How sweet the berries smell, Theodosia! " 
 
 " Let 's stay a little longer, Theodora I " 
 
 "Who's a-goin' by now, Cynthy?" 
 
 " Just the Rogerses, up to the Turner hop-house 
 
 107 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 and back ; but, land o' me I if Miss Theodosia ain't 
 a-skippin'! " 
 
 "Well," said The Other One, as tjie story came to 
 an end, "you are almost as bad as The Prevaricator." 
 
 108 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 CONCERNING COMPLEXIONS 
 
 THE Prevaricator is my 
 sister. We call her The 
 Prevaricator because she 
 has any amount of imagination, 
 and uses it in writing many, many 
 beautiful possible and impossible 
 tales. As The Other One has a 
 great deal of respect for her, I 
 hoped that his last remark was 
 intended for a compliment. 
 
 It was at the time when many 
 things were happening in The 
 Find-out Garden that The Pre- 
 varicator came to monopolize my 
 bench, to gather some of the in- 
 spiration in the air, and to add 
 another rosy glow to The Pink 
 Garden ; for wherever The Pre- 
 varicator goes, she sheds a pink 
 radiance about her. 
 
 The morning after her arrival 
 we were making the rounds of 
 the gardens, while The Other One 
 went off to town on business. 
 Vibgyora, proud and voluble, had 
 been prancing about, enthusiastic- 
 ally praising the results of her 
 
 109 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 untiring care, stooping now and then to pull a weed, 
 or excitedly to pat a fat bud on the head, as she 
 talked unceasingly. By the look in The Prevari- 
 cator's eyes, I knew at once that Vibgyora was fated 
 to appear in some future pen picture. We lingered 
 there for nearly an hour, and our eyes were so dazzled 
 with the blaze of coldr that it seemed a relief to 
 pass into The Herb Garden, where the aromatic 
 fragrance and the many quieting shades of green 
 rested our stimulated senses. We looked down 
 upon the river hurrying onward between its high 
 banks. Below us the growth of trees was so thick 
 as to hide the rocks from view. One could step 
 off into the tops of those huge forest monarchs, if 
 one so liked, but that would be a foolish thing to 
 do, I think. 
 
 We stroUed to the edge of The Woods, and paused 
 to listen to The Brook down in The Glen. 
 
 " When The Other One is at liberty, we must get 
 him to come with us down into The Glen, so that 
 you can select a stone for The Cairn," said I, for this 
 was The Prevaricator's first visit to Glencaim Hall, 
 as she had been abroad ever since my marriage, and 
 her stone had not been added to The Cairn in 
 consequence ; but she knew the story, of course, 
 and had long since made it into a little tale of 
 her own. So we merely peeped down into The 
 Glen for the present. Then I led her to The 
 
 110 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Italian Terrace, and watched her face as we ascended 
 the steps and entered The Pink Garden. I had told 
 her in my letters all I could about this plan of mine, 
 but a garden is a thing one has to see to appreciate, 
 and though I had tried hard to describe to her the 
 glories of the place, I now could see that I had not 
 half succeeded in so doing. Her countenance glowed 
 with pink, and at first she dared not utter so much as 
 an exclamation. I paused beside her, and, without 
 disturbing her mood, let her gaze sUently so long as 
 she could; but when, of her own accord, she sank 
 upon the bench by The Sun-Dial, her feelings found 
 expression in oceans of words. If a dictionary sud- 
 denly should have begun to recite its own long 
 columns it could not have distanced The Prevaricator 
 in the race. She began with single syllables, and 
 went on and on, from one long word to a longer one, 
 until I thought it would be my duty to invent still 
 more lengthy ones for her use, in case the easy flow 
 of her language should meet some obstruction. She 
 ceased so naturally, however, that I quite forgot to 
 offer her the " glorisplendibeautimarvelacious " I had 
 just coined. 
 
 " You did not tell me half the beauty of it all 1 " 
 she cried. 
 
 " How could I ? " I asked. 
 
 " You could n't," said she. " No one could begin 
 
 to give a description that would convey the smallest 
 
 111 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 idea of The Garden itself ! It defies 
 a truthful portrayal, and I think I 
 could not even lie about it effec- 
 tively. " 
 
 And this, from a person of so 
 widespread a reputation as The 
 Prevaricator, is an admission worth 
 mentioning. 
 
 After that we were content to 
 give up any attempt at a setting 
 forth of the beauties of The Pink 
 Garden, and we wandered among the 
 flowers still wet with dew ; watched 
 the butterflies that had escaped Gio- 
 vanni Pincolini's clutches, the hum- 
 ming-birds, and the bees ; saw the 
 water from the fouiitain rise into the 
 sunshine, and fall tinkling into 
 the basin ; loitered at The Sun-Dial 
 and re-read the inscription ; listened 
 to the bird songs, and were fortunate 
 enough to see Felix hopping about 
 among the branches of a nearby 
 shrub ; even the ants busily crawl- 
 ing about the patljs of The Pink 
 Garden seemed far more interesting 
 than any other ants. The Prevari- 
 cator hardly could be dragged from 
 
 112 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the place when luncheon - time 
 came. 
 
 " I have loved pink always," said 
 she, as we went across the lawn to 
 the shaded porch where the table 
 was spread, "but I have just found 
 out that I really never have known 
 until now what pink in aU its shades 
 means. It is, — it is, — well, there 
 is no word to fit 1 " 
 
 " There was rit any word," said I, 
 " but there is now, — I made up one 
 on purpose to supply the lack, — for 
 we need one, you know. It is so 
 embarrassing not to be able to tell 
 any one what The Pink Garden is." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" asked The 
 Prevaricator. 
 
 " It is simply glorisplendibeauti- 
 marvelacious," said I, triumphantly, 
 but she gave me an amused look, 
 and would not even thank me for 
 coming to her aid in this matter. 
 
 " You are a crazy child," said she, 
 patronizingly. 
 
 After luncheon she would not 
 hear of such a thing as a nap. 
 
 " I am going back to The Pink 
 
 113 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Garden," said she. "Naps can wait for rainy 
 days." 
 
 " But do you not wish to see if Mary has finished 
 unpacking and putting away your things properly ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " I can find that out later," said she, picking up 
 her white shade-hat and handing nae mine. 
 
 " Come," she continued. " The Pink Garden is 
 where you belong, too," and I was happy to obey. 
 
 First, however, I took her to The Find-out 
 Garden, a spot I had forgotten in our morning 
 ramble, so eager had I been to show her The Italian 
 Terrace. 
 
 "What do you call this motley array?" said she, 
 pointing to the long bed. 
 
 "This is The Find-out Garden," said I. "You 
 know I wrote you about it when it was first planned. 
 We had to have a place for the seeds, bulbs, and roots 
 concerning the color of which we were in doubt." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember," said she. " You did not 
 want any jealousy in Vibgyor, or any hurt feehngs 
 in The Pink Garden, so this is neutral ground 1 
 suppose." 
 
 " There is nothing the matter with the ground at 
 all," said I, mischievously. " It i^ as good as any 
 other." 
 
 " AU right," said she, laughing, " and so as fast as 
 these green things blossom, or show color, you haul 
 
 114 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 them up and take them to their pr6per gardens, do 
 you ? " 
 
 " We do," said I, " and for fear Vibgyora may 
 grab some tender, pink thing, and transplant it in 
 her domain, I visit this garden very early each morn- 
 ing, that I may have the first chance to judge the 
 new blossoms. So far, there have been more to 
 add to The Pink Garden than to that of The Un- 
 mentionables, which is rather queer. Vibgyora has 
 remarked the fact, and looks at me as though she 
 half suspected I did something to the plants to make 
 them blossom in pink." 
 
 As The Prevaricator had not yet visited The 
 Crow's Nest, we sauntered down Spring Beauty 
 Lane in which a few late-comers among the blos- 
 soms were glorying in their tardiness, because it 
 gave them a gUmpse of the masses of roses and 
 other flowers which their early brothers and sisters 
 had missed. 
 
 The Crow's Nest was a delight on this perfect 
 June afternoon. The shade was cool and dense. 
 Through the thick branches and fluttering leaves 
 we could catch but stray peeps into the sunlit Gar- 
 den, and from below a passer-by could not have seen 
 us at all. 
 
 "Do you know," said The Prevaricator, as she 
 chmbed to the upper platform and seated herself 
 comfortably, " I have been thinkirjg, ever since we 
 
 116 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 left the last garden, that this world is the same 
 thing, — a great Find-out Garden in which we plants 
 are rooted. We grow daily, and send out tender, 
 innocent leaves ; next, we develop buds ; and then 
 we show our color. If we are true pink, we pass 
 to the Paradise of Pink, but if we are not, then we 
 take our places among The Unmentionables. It is 
 a good thing to think of the many who have stood 
 the test of this Find-out Garden." 
 
 " O Prevaricator," called the voice of The Other 
 One from below. " Why so solemn ? Here have I 
 torn myself away from the city an hour earlier than 
 I had intended, on purpose to give you the pleasure 
 of my company, and you greet rne with words so 
 lofty in character that I know immediately I shall 
 find you in the top of a tree, and here you are 1 
 Will The Nest hold another Crow?" 
 
 " It will hold an Other One, I think," said I. 
 
 We had taken off our wide hats, and had hung 
 them by the strings from the branches near us. The 
 Other One removed his own hat and rumpled up his 
 hair. 
 
 " What do you think of my wife's complexion, O 
 Prevaricator ? " asked he. 
 
 " What a stupid question ! " said I. 
 
 " Her complexion is all that one "could wish," said 
 The Prevaricator. " I never saw her look so well 
 before." 
 
 117 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 « Thank you," said The Other One. 
 
 " And why thank you ? " said The 
 Prevaricator. 
 
 " Because," he returned, " she owes 
 it to me." 
 
 " Are you an inventor of some rare 
 lotion that is guaranteed to give one 
 a charming complexion?" queried 
 The Prevaricator. 
 
 "Well, not exactly," said The 
 Other One, "but now, all joking 
 aside, the reason 1 mention it at all 
 is because of the marked contrast 
 brought to my notice to-day. In 
 the city, and in the country too, I 
 noticed many hatless young ladies. 
 There seems to be some passion 
 among these young women to get 
 as tanned, sunburij,ed, and freckled 
 as possible, and the blacker they 
 get, the more fashionable they think 
 themselves, — and the more un- 
 sightly they appear, if they but 
 knew it. Why, I saw girls with 
 elbow sleeves, or with sleeves rolled 
 up, and all bareheaded, out in the 
 glaring sun, and their skins fairly 
 ruined already in early June. Last 
 
 118 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Summer I noticed that my Best 
 Of All frequently ran out-of-doors 
 minus her hat, and for fear she, 
 too, would ruin her pretty skin 
 I called her attention to the un- 
 bonneted girls of Indian hue in 
 the city streets. Then, when we 
 were once more at home, I bade her 
 look in the mirror at her own fair 
 skin, and tell me truthfully which of 
 the two colors would charm a young 
 man more. After that I had the 
 pleasure of seeing her sweet face 
 laughing at me from under a most 
 becoming shade-hat bedecked and 
 tied with pink. Tell me, now, are 
 not her cheeks as pink and her brow 
 as creamy and yet as healthy as pos- 
 sible ? The sun treats one fairly if 
 he is given the chance, but when a 
 girl is so fooUsh as to tempt him too 
 brazenly, he turns her skin to leather, 
 and after this treatment no skin is 
 ever the same. I can assure you 
 ' the nut-brown maid ' did not be- 
 long to the reckless class. Besides, 
 the glare of the sun injures the 
 eyes, and causes one to squint, 
 
 119 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 thus encouraging wrinkles. I think those silly girls 
 are making a great mistake." 
 
 " I believe you," said The Prevaricator, " and of 
 one thing I am glad, — that I had sense enough to 
 bring my wide-brimmed hat 1 It is the first thing I 
 had taken out of my luggage, when I arrived," 
 
 " Do not be afraid, though, that The Other One 
 makes me sleep in a face mask," said I. 
 
 " I have perfect confidence," said The Prevaricator, 
 "that The Other One is too sensible." 
 
 After all, we did not go down into The Pink Gar- 
 den tiU nearly time for tea. It was so pleasant in The 
 Crow's Nest, — pleasant for The Prevaricator, because 
 of the novelty ; pleasant for The Other One, because 
 he is lazy and loves to visit anywhere ; pleasant for 
 me, because they found it so ; and pleasant for us all, 
 because we knew The Pink Garden was near us, and 
 because its thousand scents filled the air we breathed. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SUN-DIAL SPEAKS 
 
 WE shall have our tea in 
 The Pink Garden," an- 
 nounced The Other 
 One, as we entered by a httle side- 
 path from The Crow's Nest. 
 
 "Then you must go to the 
 house and tell Norah," said I. 
 " It is so far that we might as 
 well aU go. That will save your 
 making a double trip, and we can 
 all come back here after dinner, 
 for the evening." 
 
 " But I did not intend to go to 
 the house at all, now," said The 
 Other One. 
 
 "You cannot send Giovanni," 
 said I, "for he is not here this 
 afternoon." 
 
 " I was not thinking of Gio- 
 vanni," said The Other One. 
 
 "Then perhaps you want me 
 to go," said I. " Do you think I 
 want to go to all that trouble for 
 a httle tea ? " 
 
 " I would not have you go for 
 anything," said he, coolly. " In fact, 
 I would not have any one go." 
 
 121 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " Oh," said The Prevaricator, " then you think 
 that perhaps if we sit down on the bench, and 
 think hard enough, we can will Norah to come 
 with the tea-tray. Well, let 's begin ! " 
 
 Then The Other One smiled in his superior way, 
 and I knew he had a secret of some kind. 
 
 " He has made all necessary arrangements," said I, 
 scornfully. " He is a humbug ! Of course when he 
 came home he told Norah to bring our tea out here ! " 
 
 "I did tell her we would have tea in The Pink 
 Garden, most certainly, but I also told her I would 
 let her know when we were ready." 
 
 " Then you will have to go to the house, after 
 all ! " I said triumphantly. 
 
 The Other One said nothing at this. He merely 
 went to The Sun-Dial, and appeared to be reading 
 the inscription. I laughed because he had been so 
 unwittingly stupid. Then he began to speak. 
 
 " O Sun-Dial," said he, in loud, earnest tones, " O 
 Soul of The Garden, speak, and teU Norah, our hand- 
 maiden, that we thirst for our afternoon tea. Tell 
 her we desire her presence immediately in The Pink 
 Garden ! " and with his hands he made strange passes 
 over The Sun-Dial. 
 
 Well, as The Prevaricator said afterward, it seemed 
 as though some real magic had been worked, for The 
 Other One brought a small table from one of the 
 garden-shelters on the lawn nearby, and in a few 
 
 122 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 minutes we saw Norah coming across the grass with 
 the tea things. 
 
 " Norah," said I, when she had set down the tray, 
 "how did you know that we were ready for our 
 tea?" 
 
 " Why, ma 'am," said she, " I supposed ye was all 
 ready, for didn't the master say he'd ring when ye 
 was, and sure, 'twas jist now the beP nearly took me 
 off me two feet with the noise ! " 
 
 " BeU," said I, " bell ? What bell ? " 
 
 It was The Other One's turn to laugh, and when- 
 ever it is The Other One's turn to do anything he 
 does it with aU his might. 
 
 The Prevaricator made him explain, but I had 
 grasped the facts, and I saw at once how the deed 
 had been wrought. Certain memories of things done 
 at the time of the setting-up of The Sun-Dial came 
 to me. I recalled the vision of torn-up earth, wires, 
 tools, — concerning which I had been too busy to 
 inquire. 
 
 " The batteries were not ready untU to-day," said 
 The Other One, " and I am glad to find that they 
 work all right." 
 
 We examined The Sun-Dial closely. The electric 
 button had been concealed cleverly, underneath the 
 inscribed stone and next to the pedestal. 
 
 " How convenient ! " exclaimed The Prevaricator. 
 "And think how easy it is to get some one from 
 
 123 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the house at any time of the day. 
 In case anything happened, or you 
 wished something you had forgotten 
 to bring out, you could touch the 
 button, and youi* call would be 
 answered so quickly ! Why, it is 
 a beautiful idea ! " 
 
 When I comprehended how 
 thoughtful The Other One had 
 been in planning this, I forgave him 
 for laughing so very heartily. 
 
 Tea is always refreshing, but tea 
 in a Pink Garden is indescribable ! 
 We sipped and forgot to talk. It 
 was as though we drank in the 
 sweetness of the roses and honey- 
 suckles, too. We were surprised 
 when the shadow on The Sun-Dial 
 told us it was time to dress for 
 dinner. Not until then did The 
 Prevaricator condescend to enter 
 the house. 
 
 The dinner was all the more 
 tempting to us on account of our 
 excellent appetites ; in fact. The 
 Prevaricator's hunger was the only 
 thing that kept her under the 
 roof-tree at all. As soon as we 
 
 124 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 had finished she addressed herself 
 to us, and in pleading tones asked 
 that just for the once, and be- 
 cause it was the first night of 
 her visit, we have our coffee served 
 in The Pink Garden. It needed 
 little persuasion on her part, how- 
 ever, to gain this point, for The 
 Other One and I spent every even- 
 ing there, though we, ourselves, had 
 not been clever enough to think of 
 having our coffee brought to us 
 there. With soft, thick, white 
 shawls we set out for The Italian 
 Terrace. It so happened that the 
 moon was nearing its full, and there 
 was plenty of light to illuminate 
 The Pink Garden. The Prevari- 
 cator stood entranced, and, indeed, 
 we all paused at the top of the 
 steps, to gaze a moment before en- 
 tering the charmed spot. The foun- 
 tain sparkled in silvery radiance, 
 and the fresh dew-drops twinkled 
 on every flower and grass-blade. 
 The Sun-Dial too, was enchanted, 
 and told strange hours by the moon. 
 A magic wand truly must have been 
 
 125 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 passed over the place. Though The Other One 
 and I had witnessed more than one such night 
 change, yet we were as fascinated for a time as was 
 The Prevaricator, and through it all each of us was 
 conscious of the pink blossoms nodding a welcome 
 as the soft, evening breeze stole by, — pink blossoms, 
 
 — some wide awake, drinking in the beauties of the 
 hour and giving out their fragrance in return ; pink 
 blossoms, — some asleep with tightly folded petals, 
 
 — lulled, no doubt, by the soothing influences in the 
 air ; and pink buds there were, that never yet had 
 opened their eyes upon the world, — tender buds 
 nourished daily and nightly by the surrounding 
 sweetness, innocently absorbing everything, and stiU 
 unconscious of the responsibilities awaiting them in 
 life. 
 
 As The Prevaricator said, one bud or one flower of 
 another hue, however delicate that hue, would have 
 been an interruption. We proved this too, on the way 
 back, for we had curiosity enough to peep at Vibgyor, 
 and were not impressed by the same feelings that had 
 moved us in The Pink Garden. The light which 
 fell upon the blossoms of Vibgyor was the same as 
 that which illuminated The Italian Terrace ; but the 
 blossoms themselves, in all their various colors, were 
 too evident to encourage that quiet, peaceful, one- 
 toned mood we had felt in The Pink Garden ; 
 why, in Vibgyor, even in their sleep, the buds and 
 
 126 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 blossoms cried out, "Look at me! Look at me!" 
 and " Look at me ! " One's thoughts had to be Vib- 
 gyorian to keep up with the place. 
 
 In my anxiety to describe everjrthing relating to 
 The Pink Garden, I find I have not told, as yet, 
 of The Birds' Hour. This fact occurred to me 
 on the morning after our evening on The Italian 
 Terrace. 
 
 The Prevaricator was delighted to see how the 
 birds appropriated The Pink Garden. Always, 
 when we were there, we could hear them chatter- 
 ing or singing, and could see them hopping about, 
 searching for insects and worms on the ground or 
 among the plants and bushes, and we had excellent 
 opportunities to watch them. 
 
 "Do you know," observed The Prevaricator, 
 "every time my attention is attracted to the birds 
 here I think of the words you once said when you 
 were a httle girl, and the more I consider them the 
 more I am convinced that there is much truth in 
 what you said." 
 
 " What are these words ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well," said she, " you always were fond of birds, 
 and one day you had been out in the home garden 
 sitting very quietly for over an hour. Suddenly 
 you rushed into the house, and cried, ' Mother, O 
 Mother, where are you ? I 've made up a proverb 1 ' 
 ' A what ? ' asked Mother in doubt. ' A proverb,' 
 
 128 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 you repeated, excitedly. 'Well, let us hear your 
 proverb,' said Mother, soberly, — you know she never 
 laughed at any of our odd sayings. ' It is this,' said 
 you, and putting both hands behind your back, you 
 stepped up on to a hassock, and with a solemn bow, 
 said impressively, ' You can always see or hear a 
 bird.' Then, with another solemn bow, you got 
 down and waited for her approval. ' That,' said she, 
 ' is a most beautiful proverb. Do you know it to be 
 a true one ? ' ' Oh, yes, indeed ! ' said you. ' I have 
 tried it for days, and in the garden if I cannot 
 always hear a bird I can always see one ; and if I 
 cannot always see one, why then I am sure to hear 
 one; and at night, ever so late, I heard a little 
 bird talking softly in his sleep, and another time 
 a little owl hooted, so I know my proverb is a 
 true one 1 ' 'I hope,' said Mother, ' that you may 
 find that ever a true proverb, for it is a cheerful 
 one.'" 
 
 " And even afterwards did she not laugh at my 
 so-called proverb ? " said I. 
 
 "No, indeed," replied The Prevaricator, "and 
 I am sure that here it holds true, for in The 
 Pink Garden 'you can always see or hear a 
 bird.'" 
 
 The Birds' Hour was so called by The Prevari- 
 cator, and is that portion of the afternoon in which 
 the shadow on The Sun-Dial travels from four to 
 
 129 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 five. It had been my habit, from 
 the first week of our coming to live 
 at Glencairn HaU, to feed the birds 
 on The Italian Terrace, and it is 
 not to be wondered at that small, 
 feathered groups begin to collect 
 near the spot where The Sun-Dial 
 now stands, that they may be on 
 hand when the proper time comes 
 for their meal. Probably they talk 
 over the coming feast with much 
 animation, and wonder what it will 
 be, — seeds, or crumbs of bread or 
 of biscuit. The Prevaricator said, — 
 
 "And pray teU, where do your 
 birds drink?" 
 
 "Drink?" I queried. "Why, 
 really, I do not know, — I never 
 have thought about -that, but possibly 
 at the fountain." 
 
 " How can they ? " said The 
 Prevaricator. " The water is too 
 deep and in constant motion. There 
 is no chance for a httle bird to 
 approach by degrees, for there is no 
 shallow spot ; the basin is deep even 
 to the very sides, and the distance 
 from the top too far for a bird to 
 
 130 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 perch on the edge and to reach down- 
 ward." 
 
 "That is so," said I, reflectlvelyj 
 and then I had an idea. 
 
 "There is the lower part of an 
 old stone urn about the place," said 
 I, " and if that were turned bottom 
 side up it would hold water." 
 
 "Just the thing!" said The Pre- 
 varicator, " and likely to be in keep- 
 ing with The Sun-Dial pedestal, if 
 really old." 
 
 The Sun-Dial spoke again, for, 
 anxious to have the matter arranged 
 at once, I pressed the button twice, 
 — two pressures having been decided 
 upon as Giovanni's call, — and when 
 the gardener appeared I bade him 
 have Andrew help him to bring to 
 The Pink Garden the old part of 
 the urn in question, and that very 
 day it was set up near the feeding- 
 place, and fiUed with fresh water, in 
 readiness for the first thirsty birdlet 
 that might spy this added feature 
 of The Pink Garden. The Prevari- 
 cator declares that the following con- 
 versation really took place the next 
 
 131 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 morning, between two yellow-birds, and how can any 
 one contradict, when The Prevaricator had The 
 Garden to herself nearly the whole forenoon ! 
 
 Said First Yellow-bird : 
 
 " Look, brother, behold the Drinking Basin set up 
 for our benefit ! " 
 
 " Methinks more like it is an excellent Bathing 
 Pool," rephed Second Yellow-bird. 
 
 " Egad ! No doubt you are in thq right," admitted 
 First Yellow-bird. 
 
 " And yet, forsooth," said Second Yellow-bird, — 
 willing to be pohte on his part, — " to drink from 
 The Basin would be bliss the gods might envy." 
 
 " By my tail, it would that 1 " said First Yellow- 
 bird, enthusiastically. 
 
 " Brother," said Second Yellow-bird, " let us give 
 the thing fair trial. We are both thirsty and weary 
 of wing. Therefore, first let us drink our good 
 healths, and then let us plunge into the delicious 
 coolness, and thus refresh ourselves inwardly and 
 outwardly." 
 
 " Done 1 " cried First Yellow-bird. 
 
 " Here 's to ourselves, then I " said Second Yellow- 
 bird. 
 
 " And to The Pink Garden ! " said First Yellow- 
 bird. 
 
 Then they dipped in their bills, and lifted their 
 heads thankfully, — as the poet says, — but really in 
 
 132 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 order to help the water down, — and then in they 
 plunged, spattering the water recklessly about. At 
 last, panting, they flew to a bush near The Basin. 
 
 " Well, my brother," said First Yellow-bird, 
 " what think you of the draught ? " 
 
 " 'T were nectar, in very truth! " declared Second 
 Yellow-bird. " And, in turn, one question have I 
 also. What think you of the bath ? " 
 
 First YeUow-bird roUed his eyes in rapture. 
 
 " Gadzooks, but it was fine 1 " said he. 
 
 The Prevaricator knows a great deal, but I am 
 sure a yeUow-bird never said Gadzooks! 
 
 133 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON THE BORDERS OF AN UNKNOWN 
 LAND 
 
 IT was on the night of the full 
 moon, during the first week of 
 The Prevaricator's stay with 
 us, that a piece of witchery oc- 
 curred ; and this we ascribed to 
 her, for again she had proposed to 
 spend the evening in The Pink 
 Garden, and all The Other One 
 and I had done had been to fol- 
 low her to the scene where the 
 enchantment happened. 
 
 We sat down near The Sun- 
 Dial, as usual, and for a time 
 said nothing, but were content 
 to watch the effect of the sUvery 
 Ught of the slowly rising moon, 
 as it rested upon The Garden. 
 That is the last* I remember of 
 things visible, for The Prevaricator 
 began to speak, and as she wan- 
 dered on in her soft, even tones 
 my surroundings slipped away, 
 and I was transported to beauti- 
 ful, dreamy Italy, and saw it 
 as The Prevaricator willed. The 
 Other One said he left The Pink 
 
 134 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Garden at the same time and in the same way I did, 
 and saw Italy under the same conditions as mine, so 
 it was surely a plain case of magic, and The Prevari- 
 cator waved the wand. 
 
 "Lupins," said she, "blue lilies, — blue as the 
 skies, little, sweet, green peppers, rich red tomatoes, 
 dark cjrpresses, tender olive-trees, and the mysterious 
 ilex that whispers tales one longs to know, — the 
 sound of the grille that chirp among the grasses in 
 the warm sunlight, — these make the Italy that one 
 who has been there never forgets. 
 
 "Then the splash of many fountains, the scent 
 of many unknown flowers, and the fuU moon, — like 
 ours yonder, — and you have nights such as one feels no- 
 where else ; then Italy speaks as only Italy can speak. 
 
 "This scene to-night makes me think of Italy 
 somewhat, and the moon, so glorious now, calls up the 
 tale of The Villa Lunetta. It may be a child's tale 
 after all, but simple are the folk of Italy, and child- 
 hke their hearts, — therein hes the charm. Listen ! 
 
 " On the borders of an unknown land many strange 
 things happen, and so thought httle Nuchette Fer- 
 naldi as she came home from the lupin-fields one 
 night, when the crescent moon hung low in the 
 heavens ; for, upon entering the house, she found 
 that old Coso, her stepfather, had gone away. 
 
 "Nuchette was puzzled. Never, to her knowl- 
 
 135 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 edge, had Coso Fanucci set foot outside of the rude 
 fence that separated their bit of land from the road 
 leading down to the town at the foot of the hills, 
 and it took some time to think over this matter. It 
 needed but a quick examination to show that he was 
 nowhere inside or outside of the place. 
 
 " Nuchette did not grieve as she went about her 
 evening tasks, but just wondered, and hoped vaguely 
 that nothing evil had befallen old Coso. He had 
 been a hard man to her, but at least he was all she 
 had, and his beatings were not so bad, she thought, 
 as those Tessa Langone got from her cross uncle. 
 A severe beating at this very moment would make 
 her feel less lonesome, and she found herself listen- 
 ing with expectancy for the gruiF voice calling, — 
 
 " ' Nuchette, Nuchette ! Why So late from the 
 lupin-fields ? No supper yet, and the darkness deep- 
 ening ! Thou lazy one ! Take that ! ' 
 
 " She fairly dodged the imagined blow, as she 
 thought over the weU-known words, and then 
 laughed at her own fancy. 
 
 "Well, she would lay the simple meal, and per- 
 haps his stick would thump soon on the worn path 
 outside. With care she prepared the supper of po- 
 tatoes, fresh laid eggs, and a bit of cheese, getting 
 out dishes for two, and eating from the old, cracked 
 plate, as usual, but putting the one decent dish at 
 Coso's end of the table, as was her wont. She even 
 
 136 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 went to a small cupboard and drew forth a flask of 
 wine for which she had saved her own quattrini, and 
 which she often proudly set before her stepfather 
 when her wages had been higher than on most days. 
 To-night he should have a treat, for the flask was 
 half full. But she waited in vain, and ate her share 
 of the supper in silence. She did not sing as she 
 cleared away the things, and stood for awhile in the 
 doorway, looking down the dusky road. Nuchette 
 could sing, always, even after a stinging blow from 
 her stepfather's cane ; but now she sang not. 
 
 " The young moon had gone, and stars shone 
 tenderly into the dark eyes upturned to the skies. 
 It was all exceedingly strange. Nuchette sighed, 
 went indoors, and looked to see that all the hens had 
 come in likewise, for they shared the house with 
 Nuchette and old Coso, and there was a hole cut in 
 one side wall, through which opening the fowls might 
 come in and go out. Yes, they were on their roost, 
 and not one hen was missing. 
 
 " Nuchette said a prayer for old Coso, asked the 
 protection of the Holy Mother, and sought the hard 
 bed in a little loft under the thatched roof. She was 
 thoroughly tired. Hard labor all day in the lupin- 
 fields, with but a brief rest, when, at noontime, she 
 ate her dry crust and her bit of cold meat, had brought 
 on a healthful weariness, and though still worried over 
 the disappearance of Coso, she was riot a long while in 
 
 137 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 falling asleep. She had a wonderful 
 dream. Generally she slept a dream- 
 less sleep, but to-hight she saw a 
 strange vision. 
 
 " The young moon seemed to rise 
 once more in the heavens, and by its 
 faint light and the radiance of the 
 stars she saw old Coso Fanucci 
 standing in the doorway of the little 
 house. In his hand he held some- 
 thing which glittered in the pale, 
 blue gleam of the moon and of the 
 stars, and he was smiling. Nuchette 
 never had seen Coso smile, and the 
 sight filled her with gladness. How 
 that gentle look did warm her lone- 
 some heart, to be sure ! Ah, if he 
 always would smile as he was doing 
 nowl He held up the thing that 
 glittered, and beckoned Nuchette 
 toward him. She went cautiously, 
 and hardly dared to breathe lest that 
 happy glance vanish. She heard 
 him speak in tones more soft than 
 any he ever had used when ad- 
 dressing her. 
 
 " ' Nuchette, my poor child, thou 
 who art more lonely than the solitary 
 
 138 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 moon that beams pitifully upon thee, 
 receive an old man's blessing. When 
 thou wast hardly more than a bam- 
 bino, thy madre left thee with none 
 to look after thy welfare save cross, 
 ugly Coso Fanucci. Ever wast thou 
 gentle when thou received but evil 
 words ; careful wert thou to neglect 
 no task, and didst receive but curses 
 for thy pains. Thou hast been a 
 faithful, patient child, and hast given 
 the best that is in thee for one who 
 gave thee no thanks. Thy troubles 
 are over, or will be when thou canst 
 fit into the proper lock this key 
 which glitters with the lustre of the 
 young moon, and with the glow of 
 the ancient stars. Thou hast seen 
 more of labor than thy years deserve, 
 and but one more task awaits thee, 
 — the quest for the lock of the 
 crescent key. Francesco Mendacci 
 will buy the Uttle house on the hiU, 
 and hkewise will pay thee for the 
 fowls and whatsoever else thou de- 
 sirest to sell. Waste not thy young 
 life in the lonesome hut, but get thee 
 started upon thy search. Coso can 
 
 139 
 
 .\ 
 
 V^, 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 give thee but a far-off hint. The lock thou wouldst 
 unfasten hes not in the town below, but to reach it 
 thou must go through a lonely pass in the mountains, 
 across a stream that sings of the sea, through fields 
 of blue lilies, avenues of dark cypresses, groves of 
 young olives, and then thou must enter into the holy 
 place of silence. Only a patient, loving heart like 
 thine can then discover it, and thy madre herself 
 left these directions. It will be weU for thee to 
 burn a candle for old Coso Fanned in the place of 
 peace. Take thou the key of the young crescent, 
 and may its light guide thee safely to the happiness 
 that awaits thee.' 
 
 " The hand holding the key was extended, and in 
 amazement Nuchette received the glittering thing. 
 Then Coso seemed to fade into thq night, and only 
 the memory of that smile lingered in her thoughts. 
 She bethought her of the key, and, — awoke ! 
 
 " This dream had taken so great a hold upon the 
 imagination of little Nuchette that she could think 
 of nothing else whUe she dressed herself that morn- 
 ing. First of all she looked to ;see if Coso had 
 returned, but there was no sign of the old man any- 
 where. So she said her prayers, fed the fowls, pre- 
 pared her simple meal, and set the house in order 
 for the day. It did seem a great wonder that as she 
 was about to set out for the lupin-fields she should 
 meet Francesco Mendacci on his way up to ask her 
 
 140 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 if she would not sell him her houS6, the fowls, and 
 whatever else she desired to exchange for money. 
 The dream was so clearly in her mind that under 
 its influence she turned back, maide a satisfactory 
 bargain with Francesco, and went to her little loft 
 to make up a small parcel of her clothing. As she 
 entered her room, right in the middle of the floor lay 
 a glittering object. She stooped and picked up a 
 curious key made to fit into a lock of crescent shape. 
 The key had not been there when she left her room 
 that morning, she felt sure, but she did not stop to 
 question herself, or to give way to stupid bewilder- 
 ment, but, fastening the key to the little crucifix she 
 always wore about her neck, beneath her dress, she 
 hastened to make the final arrangements with Fran- 
 cesco, who had been absent while she got together her 
 belongings. He brought with him the money due 
 her for the property, and tied it up for her in a stout 
 leather bag. Then he saw her set forth. Neither 
 of them mentioned the name of Coso Fanucci, nor did 
 it occur to them to do so. Then the familiar hiUside 
 faded out of Nuchette's sight, and she set her face 
 toward the distant mountains. 
 
 " At noontime she obtained goat's milk and bread 
 from some contadini dwelling on a high hill above a 
 market town, and after resting and chatting pleasantly 
 with the people who had been so kind to her, she set 
 out toward the hiUs that were higher stiU. 
 
 149 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " At dusk she came to a narrow space between two 
 of the mountains. How dark it looked in that un- 
 known valley I Ah I Was it not the lonely pass that 
 old Coso had told her of in the dream? Surely, it 
 must be 1 And at that moment she saw the young 
 moon peeping down between the mountains, as 
 though trying to shed light into that gloomy place. 
 Nuchette paused not by the way, but went forward 
 bravely. Her stout heart quailed at the thought of 
 the possible presence of bandits in unknown caves 
 of those formidable mountains, but she knew she 
 could go more safely by night than by day, for the 
 darkness would prove her friend, whereas the light 
 would betray her to those cruel robbers. 
 
 " As day began to dawn she came out through an 
 opening in the gap to a flat country. How peaceful 
 it looked in the morning brightness! There lay a 
 tiny to^vn just astir for the day's work. Market carts 
 were coming thither from the surrounding hills, and 
 women and children sang as they started for the fields 
 to engage in hard labor. Nuchette, weary as she was 
 from her long tramp, burst into song likewise. 
 
 " ' Safely hath been made the lonely pass between 
 the high mountains,' she sang ; ' and there is rest in 
 the quiet plains.' 
 
 " She crept under the first hedge she reached 
 and fell asleep with a prayer of praise on her 
 lips. 
 
 143 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 "The sun was high when she 
 awoke, and, much refreshed, she once 
 more journeyed onward. She found 
 food in the town, and received a 
 warm welcome from the kindly 
 people. So happy was she in the 
 homes of those gd6d folk that she 
 did not go farther that day, but 
 remained there residing, plajmig with 
 the rosy bambini, and telling stories 
 to the older children. But the next 
 day she was up with the lark 
 and away on her quest, without 
 having told a single soul the object 
 of her search. Her heart was hght, 
 and she felt able to travel over many 
 difficult mountains. 
 
 " The queer thing about this jour- 
 ney was, that not once did Nuchette 
 wonder what direction she should 
 take. Without any thought what- 
 ever as to this important question 
 she went on as confidently as though 
 often she had been that way before. 
 
 " At sunset she came to the stream 
 that sang of the sea. 
 
 " ' Oh, fair are the green hillsides 
 where are the homes of man!' warbled 
 
 144 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the stream, ' but fairer are the soh- 
 tary places where only waters find a 
 pathway. Beautiful are all the little 
 lakes that calmly lie in the sun and 
 in the shadow, but better far the 
 grand, old sea that since Time be- 
 gan never has ceased to surge. Oh, 
 the glorious sea that roUs on and 
 on ! Hinder me not, for I seek the 
 mighty sea I ' 
 
 " The waters of the stream danced 
 in the ruddy Ught of the setting 
 sun. 
 
 " ' Nuchette goes a journey, too, 
 O stream,' said the girl, 'therefore 
 prevent her not, as she would not 
 stop thy course ! ' and the stream 
 flowed more softly, showing her 
 where the big stones lay under- 
 neath the sparkling surface, and she 
 drew off her shoes and walked fear- 
 lessly across. She then thanked the 
 stream and joined her voice with its, 
 voice. 
 
 " ' Safely hath been made the 
 lonely pass between the high moun- 
 tains,' she sang ; ' and there was rest 
 in the quiet plains. Through the 
 
 145 
 
 S 
 
 jr\ 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 stream that sings of the sea hath been found a way,' 
 and, throwing herself down upon the soft bank, she 
 slept sweetly all through the night, whUe the waters 
 murmured a tender luUaby, and the moon, a little 
 larger than before, beamed lovingly upon her. 
 
 " In the morning, after eating of the food she had 
 brought from the town in the plain, she bade the 
 stream farewell and went on her quest. As she 
 travelled farther and farther the fields grew more 
 and more lovely. Birds sang, and flowers became 
 sweeter, tiU all at once there burst upon her sight 
 hosts of blue lilies nodding in the golden sunshine, 
 and swaying in the gentle breeze. A great peace 
 stole into Nuchette's heart, and her eyes filled with 
 tears at that heavenly vision. It seemed as though 
 she could not leave the blue lilies, and, indeed, that 
 night she slept among them, and in the deeper, 
 darker blue sky shone the growing crescent. Plain- 
 tive crickets — the happy, drowsy grille — hushed 
 her, and her slumber was a dreamless one. 
 
 " For many days she wandered through the fields, 
 and all of them were radiant with the blue lilies. 
 Occasionally she came upon a hut where she rested, 
 and ate of sustaining food, and she. wished for noth- 
 ing but the joy of living among the blue lilies. 
 Everything comes to an end, however, and finally 
 Nuchette reached the last field. Beyond were many 
 trees of dark green hue. 
 
 146 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 "'Safely hath been made the lonely pass between 
 the high mountains,' sang she ; • and there was rest 
 in the quiet plains. Through the stream that sings 
 of the sea hath been found a way. Lo, joy hath it 
 been to wander midst the blue Ulies that give thanks 
 to the meUow sunshine, lifting their heads to the 
 skies ! ' 
 
 "She entered the shade of the dusky cypresses. 
 Upward went the long avenues, and then she came 
 to a mountain village. She smiled back at the trees, 
 and sang, — 
 
 "'Safely hath been made the lonely pass between 
 the high mountains, and there was rest in the quiet 
 plains. Through the stream that sings of the sea 
 hath been found a way. Lo, joy hath it been to 
 wander midst the blue lilies that give thanks to the 
 mellow sunshine, hfting their heads to the skies ! 
 And peace dweUeth with the dark cypresses that 
 stretch forth their shielding arms.' 
 
 " In the mountain village Nuchette came upon 
 good, simple-hearted people, and she did not leave 
 them for many days. Here she bought a candle to 
 burn for old Coso when her search should be at an end. 
 
 " One morning the glitter of her crescent key 
 again urged her onward, and she went forth upon 
 her journey. 
 
 " Above the little village were groves of young 
 olive-trees, for the contadini and many of the village 
 
 147 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 people of some wealth cultivated the 
 olive, and made a good living from 
 this industry. How beautiful were 
 those delicate, green branches, and 
 how joyfully they waved in the wind ! 
 Nuchette loved the olives, and, with 
 a light heart, danced along. 
 
 " ' Ah,' sang she, • safely hath been 
 made the lonely pass between the 
 high mountains, and there was rest 
 in the quiet plains. Through the 
 stream that sings of the sea hath 
 been found a way. Lo, joy hath it 
 been to wander midst the blue liUes 
 that give thanks to the mellow sun- 
 shine, lifting their heads to the skies ! 
 And peace dweUeth with the dark 
 cypresses that stretch forth their 
 shielding arms. But fair are the 
 young olive groves that hghten the 
 step and gladden the soul.' 
 
 " Just then she came upon a noble 
 VUla. Its white columns shone in 
 the sunlight, and its princely parks 
 extended as far as the eye could see. 
 Nuchette sighed. What would it 
 be to have a home hke that ! One 
 must be happy forever who dwelt in 
 
 148 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 so beautiful a Villa. Never could 
 sorrow or loneliness find entrance 
 there ! Ere she drew near enough 
 to catch the full beauty of the estates 
 she came upon a large chapel, the 
 stones of which were of the whiteness 
 of the distant Villa. Then she be- 
 thought her of old Coso, and ad- 
 vanced toward the arched doorway 
 with the intention of entering, that 
 she might oflfer a prayer for his soul. 
 To her surprise, the doors refused to 
 yield to her efforts to open them, 
 and stooping to examine the fasten- 
 ings she almost cried out in wonder. 
 Behold, there was a curious hole of 
 crescent shape I 
 
 " Tremblingly she drew forth her 
 key and fitted it into the lock. Such 
 a radiance came from both key and 
 lock that the light fairly blinded her 
 eyes. One turn and the doors swung 
 back. With the key in her hand 
 Nuchette crossed the threshold, went 
 up the dim aisle, and fell upon her 
 knees at the altar-rail. How stUl 
 was the chapel, and how at rest was 
 her spirit ! She prayed for some time, 
 
 149 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 and then lighted the candle for old Coso. As she 
 did so she felt a touch upon her shoulder. She 
 looked up, and there stood a lady of wondrous 
 beauty. 
 
 " ' Thou hast come, my child,' said a soft voice. 
 ' I have waited long for thee. Thou knowest me not, 
 but thy madre was my sister. Fate decreed that she 
 should leave our noble home, and forget our worthy 
 name, to follow the fortunes of a lover less well-bom 
 than herself. It is but lately that I have had word 
 of her second marriage and of her 'death. Thy ex- 
 istence, too, with thy cruel stepfather hath but now 
 become known to me. There are only two keys that 
 will unlock this holy place of silence — mine, and the 
 one with which thou hast entered. The key thou 
 hast, thy madre took with her from her home. May- 
 hap she hoped to come here to pray, for she loved our 
 chapel. Nor can I tell thee why, during all these 
 years, she hath not visited her old home, for our 
 father forgave her before he died. It is enough for 
 me that thou hast come. Thy stepfather hath been 
 found dead upon the mountains, and will trouble thy 
 thoughts no more. Yet burn thy candle if thou 
 wUt, then let us hasten to the ViUa Lunetta — my 
 home, and henceforth thine also.' 
 
 " And so the wanderings of little Nuchette Fer- 
 naldi were over, and with the noble Duchessa Rudolfi, 
 of ViUa Lunetta, she found that love and tenderness 
 
 ISO 
 
A GARDEN IN PiNK 
 
 she deserved. That evening, amidst the fragrance of 
 the lovely gardens where silvery fountains splashed, 
 Nuchette and the Duchessa sat hand in hand. They 
 were silent after much happy talk, and they gazed 
 contentedly at the ancient stars. The sun had sunken 
 behind the far-off hills, and low in the skies hung a 
 new crescent. Nuchette's eyes glowed as she saw it, 
 and softly she sang, — 
 
 " ' Safely hath been made the pass between the 
 high mountains, and there was rest in the quiet 
 plains. Through the stream that sings of the sea 
 hath been found a way. Lo, joy hath it been to 
 wander midst the blue lilies that give thanks to the 
 mellow sunshine, lifting their heads to the skies! 
 And peace dwelleth with the dark cypresses that 
 stretch forth their shielding arms. But fair are the 
 young olive groves that lighten the step and gladden 
 the soul. In the holy place of silence hath the lonely 
 heart found haven, and in the Villa of the Young 
 Moon the wanderer a home.' 
 
 " Then, as the night deepened, the two went in 
 through the white columns, and left the gardens to 
 the plaintive grille, and to the -v^-atch-care of the 
 ancient stars." 
 
 " Where, — where did you hear that ? " I gasped, 
 when I found that I was reaUy in my own Pink 
 
 Garden, after all. " Who told it to you ? " 
 
 isi 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " No one," answered The Prevaricator, smiling. 
 
 " Isn't it a legend of the land? " asked The Other 
 One, likewise dropping back into The Pink Garden. 
 
 " I 'm very sorry," she replied, "but it really is not." 
 
 " Then you made it aU up ! " said I in surprise, and 
 she laughed. 
 
 " You know," said she, " I spent more time in Italy 
 than in any other country, simply because I loved it 
 so. I lived among the people of the hills surrounding 
 Florence, and I ate their little, sweet, green peppers 
 with a keen relish. When one does this, one gets the 
 spirit of Italy into one's very blood." 
 
 " O Prevaricator," said The Other One, eagerly, 
 " have you any of the seed of those peppers of Italy ? " 
 
 " You may laugh," said she, " but I have, and I 
 brought some especially for you two people ! " 
 
 " Those seeds shall be planted the first thing next 
 year, in The Pink Garden I " said I. " The blossom 
 may not be pink, but the peppers are of a truly pink 
 character, and they shall be planted near The Sun- 
 Dial ; then, when the little peppers are large enough, 
 we shall have only to eat them, and to sit here in 
 the moonlight, to be carried again to sunny Italy." 
 
 The tale of Villa Lxinetta I made The Prevaricator 
 write out for me the next morning as she sat on the 
 Garden bench, for I am sure 1 never could have 
 written this chapter if she had not done that part 
 of it herself. 
 
 1S2 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HOLLYHOCKS 
 
 VIBGYORA had come to 
 look at The Pink Garden 
 one morning, having been 
 invited cordially by me, at The 
 Prevaricator's request. In giv- 
 ing Vibgyora this invitation, we 
 both felt as though we had 
 brought her there under false pre- 
 tenses, for the true reason of 
 it all was that The Prevaricator 
 wanted to hear her talk. We 
 might have felt very sharp twinges 
 of conscience were it not that 
 Vibgyora herself never tried to 
 burden her brain with our mo- 
 tive at aU. She was there, 
 and that was enough ; and while 
 she was there she meant to 
 enjoy everything to the utmost, 
 for she was not asked to come 
 often, and she understood that. 
 While she was there, too, she 
 would make herself as agree- 
 able as possible, and this, in her 
 mind, was accomplished if one 
 talked as fast and as continuously 
 as one could ; so a race began 
 
 153 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 between her brains and her tongue, and both won 
 prizes. 
 
 " Ain't it nice to have visitors ? " she began, ad- 
 dressing me, " 'specially when a visitor happens to 
 be your sister. Why, do you know, she " — indi- 
 cating The Prevaricator — "come with the pink 
 larkspurs, though my blue ones blossomed the day 
 before she come ; but, there ! I do believe all my 
 flowers are a little more forehanded than your pink 
 ones be. It sounds real nice to say that this person 
 come with this or that sort of a flower, somethin' like 
 po'try, you know. In the Spring, if she 'd come then, 
 you could prob'ly have said, 'My sister come with 
 the violets,' — but, no ; you 'd have to have it pink 1 
 WeU, then, you could say, ' My sister come with the 
 Spring-beauties,' and that would make it all straight. 
 But as it is, she come with the pink larkspurs." 
 
 "And that," said The Prevaricator, "is a great 
 honor, I think," and she glanced toward the tall 
 stalks of pink blossoms. 
 
 " Yes, you 're right," said Vibgyora, " it certainly 
 is a gi'eat honor, for larkspurs is -gentlefolk, I tell 
 you. And they 're quite foreign-lookin', too, don't 
 you think ? They ain't got no reg'lar common, 
 stay-at-home shape, like most of the flowers. So 
 many blossoms is shaped like the rose, for instance, 
 — that is, in general make-up, I mean ; and a good 
 many is patterned somethin' like a .daisy. A pansy 
 
 ISi 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 ain't nigh so original as a larkspur ; for, after all, 
 what is a pansy but a big violet, with finer clothes 
 on, maybe ? A columbine is pretty original, for I 
 don't happen to call to mind any flower much like it ; 
 but a larkspur looks as if it had just come a-visitin' 
 from some foreign land, like you have. I hear you ve 
 seen a deal of other countries lately." 
 
 The Prevaricator nodded. 
 
 " Well, I hope you '11 'scuse me if I call you Miss 
 Larkspur, then, for I can't get you two disconnected, 
 some way, and what Mis' Best Of All calls you don't 
 mean nothin' to me." 
 
 " If I came with the pink larkspurs, I must belong 
 to their family," said The Prevaricator, seriously. 
 
 "Well," said Vibgyora, "of course they wrote 
 you all about the pink experiment, so you was fore- 
 warned, as they say. On the whole, I think it 's 
 pretty fair ; but it does seem as though I 'd miss 
 sunflowers and marigolds and pansies and snap- 
 dragons, if I could n't have 'em." 
 
 " When the cosmos blossoms," said I, " it will be 
 almost Uke having pink marigolds." 
 
 "Well, ye-es," said Vibgyora, "yes — and no, I 
 should say. There ain't nothin' much warmer and 
 richer to look at than good, deep yellow marigolds. 
 Land o' me ! Your hollyhocks is beginnin' to blossom, 
 ain't they ? I 've got lots out, — them double purple 
 and white ones, and some of them bright red ones. 
 
 155 
 
A GARDEl^f IN PINK 
 
 The other ones are a Uttle behind- 
 hand, for some reason or other I 
 can't make out. Do you know, 
 speakin' of hollyhocks and what we 
 said about folks comin' with flowers 
 makes me think of Miss Rhodesia 
 Parsons and her John. John was 
 a true hollyhock, after all, if ever 
 there was one on this earth, and 
 Miss Rhodesia deserved him, too ! " 
 
 Vibgyora was dropping into the 
 very mood my sister wished her to 
 drop into, and a glance from The 
 Prevaricator said, — 
 
 "Do nothing to joggle her out 
 of that frame of mind." 
 
 Our entertainer needed but a 
 word of encouragement to relate 
 the story of this Miss Rhodesia 
 Parsons she had known years ago. 
 The facts were noted eagerly by 
 both The Prevaricator and myself, 
 and with the following result. The 
 Prevaricator did the greater part 
 of it herself, while I merely stood 
 ready vidth the plain facts, a few 
 phrases of Vibgytjra's very own, 
 and a bare suggestion or two, and 
 
 156 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 pulled the rope once in a while, 
 when The Prevaricator's enthusiasm 
 threatened to make her soar far out 
 of sight. I beheve she enjoyed dec- 
 orating Rhodesia's rooms as much 
 as I do my own. 
 
 " It kind of seems to me as though 
 I 'd ought to be getting ready to 
 have the celebration," said Miss 
 Rhodesia Parsons, with a plaintive 
 sigh, as she stood on her side 
 doorsteps, and gazed thoughtfully 
 over her garden to the distant 
 hills behind which the sun was 
 sinking. 
 
 " Let me see," she mused. " It 's 
 just three weeks to the thirtieth of 
 June, and there 's a pile of work to 
 do before then. I must speak to 
 'Mandy to-morrow, and to 'Lonzo, 
 too, so they won't make no plans 
 for that day ; and I '11 just step across 
 the pasture right after breakfast 
 and see if Betsy Green vnU help me 
 this week and next. My ! How 
 nice the air is to-night ! I '11 run in 
 and get my little white shawl, and 
 
 157 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 go into the garden for a spell. There, now ! I guess 
 I shan't get very wet with the dew. Here, Nigger, 
 want to come, too ? Mind you don't go straying off 
 in the lots for no field-mice, sir I " 
 
 And Nigger obeyed. Perhaps he, too, was happy 
 to drink in the sweet, earthy smell of the garden, 
 for who knows that there was not somewhere within 
 that black, velvety head a something corresponding 
 to that same something in Miss Rhodesia, capable of 
 finding joy in the outdoor sights, sounds, and un- 
 utterable impressions of an early Summer night ? 
 So, after a turn or two with his mistress, he searched 
 out a little terrace devoted exclusively to his favor- 
 ite catnip, and here, taking a roU in the comforting 
 sprouts just to work off a bit of his exuberant 
 feeling, he sat blinking wide, excited, yellow eyes in 
 the gathering dusk, while the bats began to swoop 
 boldly down in their wild gladness, and almost 
 brushed two very upright, nervous, pointed, black 
 ears. 
 
 During this time a quiet figure paced the narrow 
 aisles of her flowery sanctuary, and paused now and 
 then to caress a tall stalk of buds standing sentinel 
 over the lowlier ones, or stooped to sniff at some 
 blossom half hidden under luxuriant foliage. 
 
 " It 's going to be a remarkable celebration," said 
 Rhodesia, after a final tour of the garden ; " a most 
 remarkable celebration, — better than all the others 
 
 158 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 put together ! There wa'n't never before so many 
 flowers as there '11 be this year, — and it 's in the air, 
 too. I can feel it. It's going to be a remarkable 
 celebration ! There 'U be thousands of larkspurs and 
 they '11 be out, too, for the season 's so forward. I 'm 
 afraid it 's more 'n I can expect to count on the 
 hollyhocks, though, — they 're so slow. It would be 
 so handsome to have a long row down each side of 
 the hall, they 're so kind of stately for a haU, but I 
 guess the larkspurs '11 have to do, and I 've no doubt 
 they 'U stand up real pert, anyway ; but it is sort of 
 disappointing, after all, when you 've just discovered 
 something that would be more 'n uncommon nice 
 to have to take something else instead. It's like 
 feeling plain tea in your mouth at a social supper, 
 when you 'd got your taste all made up for coffee. 
 But there 's always some consolation in ever3rthing, 
 and so there is in that ; for after you 've got the first 
 swaller of tea down, and are getting over yovu* dis- 
 gust at the flatness of it, you think that, anyhow, it 
 won't be likely to keep you awake during the night, 
 and the coffee would. So there 's ,a bit of comfort 
 in the matter of the flowers, for if I can't have the 
 hollyhocks I can have roses. I never have seen so 
 many on my bushes before, no, never ! All colors, 
 too I And if I waited for the hollyhocks the roses 
 would be gone, so I guess things are about square. 
 Now I '11 shut the parlor blinds and go in. How 
 
 159 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the frogs are a-going it to-night I 
 Come, Nigger 1 " 
 
 Could Betsy Green come to help 
 arrange the house? WeU, indeed 
 she could ! Had she not been on 
 hand to prepare for each of the other 
 five celebrations? In fact, could 
 there be a celebration without her ? 
 
 Would 'Mandy and 'Lonzo be 
 present as witnesses ? Had they ever 
 failed Miss Khodesia on such an 
 occasion ? 
 
 Even good old Mr. Bailey, the 
 minister, caUed early in the week to 
 say he would be in his accustomed 
 place on the thirtieth. 
 
 Then the fine old house underwent 
 a second Spring cleaning, and the 
 home and aU it contained fairly ached 
 with the polishings, scrubbings, beat- 
 ings, and brushings received. 
 
 "Betsy," said Rhodesia, bending 
 over a huge chest, " all the washable 
 things in my outfit wiU have to be 
 done up, for though they've been 
 worn only five times, the dust will 
 sift through most any coverings on 
 to the clothes, and this is to be a re- 
 
 160 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 markable celebration, you know ; so 
 we '11 do my own things next, and 
 then it will be time to decide about 
 the flowers." 
 
 And now, on the day of the thirst 
 tieth, everjrthing of metal, wood, or 
 glass shone with the final poUsh ; all 
 the candlesticks and quaint old can- 
 delabra held fresh candles ; and Miss 
 Rhodesia was busy disposing of the 
 heaps of cut flowers Betsy brought 
 to her. 
 
 " Take all the pink roses to the 
 best parlor, Betsy. I '11 come right 
 along and put the climbing ones over 
 the big looking-glass myself. It 's a 
 good thing I took them up by the 
 roots, for they'll keep fresh in the 
 big pots of earth and look so natural. 
 Guess I can put them back in their 
 own beds to-morrow without their 
 taking no harm from being moved. 
 You can bring some forget-me-nots 
 to me, too. I 'd intended to have 
 nothing but pink in there, but John 
 was always so fond of blue, and I 'U 
 put them in for him. It 's to let him 
 know I haven't forgot, and wherever 
 
 161 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 he is, he hasn't forgot, either. We'U put some 
 in every room, too. There nowl You can take 
 some of the mjrrtle to the library and trail it 
 along the book-cases and over the doors and 
 windows. There 's something real genteel about 
 myrtle that just goes with books. We'll have 
 nothing else but the forget-me-nots in there. Besides 
 being for John, they're appropriate for books — 
 there's so much in books you oughtn't to forget. 
 I 'm glad the brook 's so near that we shan't run out 
 of the flowers. We '11 make a bank of them each 
 side of the hall, and they '11 hide the jars the lark- 
 spurs 'U be in and go first rate with the darker blue 
 of the tall spikes above them. Dear me, how I wish 
 the hollyhocks could have spunked up energy enough 
 to blossom ahead of time I They 're just what I 
 wanted, Betsy, for they've always gone with the 
 place — stood by it, you know, in all kinds of weather, 
 like the good old knights they are. It was my own 
 idea, too, to use them for decorating. I never heard 
 of any one else's doing it, and I can see exactly how 
 they 'd look, like handsome soldiers down the sides 
 of the hall, and towering up as high as father's old 
 swords and musket there. Why, there are so many 
 that even with the hall double-lined you 'd hardly 
 know a stalk was missing from that row along the 
 wall. They make me think of John, too. Nothing 
 seems to make me feel so resigned over his absence 
 
 162 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 as to look at that gallant line, and to say to 
 myself — 
 
 " ' Courage, Rhodesia, John 's a true hollyhock 1 ' 
 " And when he did n't come on the wedding day, 
 six years ago, and all the word I got was, ' It 's 
 all for the best, Rhodesia, I '11 never change,' I 
 knew it was all right, and I vowed I 'd never change, 
 either. That 's why I 've always got ready for the 
 celebration. But I have n't time to talk about any- 
 thing except our work, now. 
 
 " In the dining-room we 'U have some of each 
 variety of flowers, for one kind will please one person, 
 and another person will like some different sort. 
 That 's the right idea for a dining-room, for you see 
 there 'U be all kinds of eatables, too ; and one person 
 win want this and none of that, and another wiU 
 want that and none of this, and some folks wiU Uke 
 them all. Now we '11 take the rest of the flowers 
 upstairs. Be sure you wind in forget-me-nots with 
 the vines on the banisters. In the best room we 'U 
 put only very pale yeUow roses with the forget-me- 
 nots. They '11 look lovely together, and be so sweet 
 and dignified. In the big west room I 've laid out 
 the presents we got six years ago, and those 'Mandy 
 and 'Lonzo and the minister's wife have insisted on 
 adding at each celebration, and you can scatter for- 
 get-me-nots carelessly around on the tables and fill 
 aU those vases and bowls with the deep red roses. 
 
 163 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 In my room I must have only the 
 pinky white roses and one large bowl 
 of forget-me-nots on my bureau. Use 
 aU the flowers that -are left to fiU in 
 with in the proper rooms for them. 
 Then I '11 get dressed while you put 
 the last touches to the dining-room 
 table and see that everything is 
 ready." 
 
 A little before eight o'clock every 
 candle was lighted. The air was 
 fragrant with the breath of the flow- 
 ers, and an expectant hush prevailed 
 throughout the house. In the old 
 hall stood 'Mandy and 'Lonzo and 
 the minister's wife, arrayed in their 
 Sunday best, and looking eagerly 
 toward the stairs. In such manner 
 had they stood on ^ve other June 
 nights, awaiting the appearance of 
 the same bride. And for the sixth 
 time they caught their breath when 
 a faint rustle of silk announced the 
 coming of Rhodesia. Slowly she 
 descended, and the same youthful 
 flush tinted her cheek, the same 
 glow brightened her eyes. Even 
 the white silk gown held its former 
 
 164 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 sheen. With stately measure she 
 passed between the flanks of lark- 
 spurs and forget-me-nots to the 
 great parlor, the witnesses silently 
 following. She advanced to the 
 place where the minister stood be- 
 fore the rose-trimmed mirror, and 
 quietly he addressed her : — 
 
 " Rhodesia, you have been a faith- 
 ful maiden, as the years have proved ; 
 and your patience is about to be re- 
 warded, for" I have received this day 
 a communication from John Allen, 
 begging me to prepare you for the 
 news of his return. What more fit- 
 ting time to do this than the present, 
 when your own thoughts bring you 
 so near to him who has been honor- 
 able from the first? Know, then, 
 that through the sudden discovery 
 of a serious crime supposed to have 
 been committed by his brother 
 Henry, John AUen, unwilling to 
 bring you aught but honor, left you, 
 that you might not bear with him 
 the shadow resting upon his name. 
 It has been proved this month that h 
 the sin was wrongfully charged to 
 
 165 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Henry Allen, and this letter enclosed in mine is for 
 you, and comes from John, to tell you the glad news 
 of his home-coming." 
 
 Hhodesia said simply, 
 
 " I was sure of it ! " 
 
 "And now," said Mr. Bailey, "we shall drink to 
 the health of the bride and of the groom. Miss 
 Betsy, will you show us to the dining-room ? " 
 
 And Betsy, who had been peering around the door, 
 displayed wonderful alacrity in obeying. 
 
 Miss Rhodesia did not faint. 
 
 " I knew it was in the air, Betsy," said she, later, 
 " and as John says he wants the wedding right off, 
 you must be on hand two weeks from to-day, — and 
 say, Betsy, we 'U have sweet peas instead of the roses, 
 and the hollyhocks will line the hall!" 
 
 " I hope," remarked The Other One, after reading 
 the story, " that John never grew tired of living up 
 to the dignity of his hoUyhockship." 
 
 166 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PINK GARDEN BOOK, AND A 
 
 SNAIL IN THE PORTULACA 
 
 WOODS 
 
 THERE came a day when the 
 rain fell so persistently that 
 it was impossible for us to 
 stay for any length of time out-of- 
 doors, so we had to content our- 
 selves with three five-minute peeps 
 from beneath umbrellas at The 
 Pink Garden — one peep after 
 breakfast, one peep after luncheon, 
 and the final peep between tea- 
 time and dinner-time. If we had 
 neglected any one of these peeps, 
 and, in consequence, something 
 new had happened that we had 
 not noticed, we would have felt as 
 though we had slighted The Pink 
 Garden. In the meantime, we 
 made ourselves as comfortable as 
 we could in The Garden Room, 
 much to The Prevaricator's de- 
 light. The deep chairs with the 
 soft velveteen cushions were so 
 restful, and although the room had 
 not been transformed as yet into 
 
 167 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Aspiration Hall, it was cozy, and not without many 
 attractions. 
 
 During the morning and a part of the afternoon 
 The Prevaricator and I were left to ourselves, for The 
 Other One, in spite of the rain, had insisted on going 
 to town. However, it was a good thing that he 
 managed to be with us at tea-time, for we two had 
 been chattering so hard ever since his departure that 
 our tongues were glad of a rest when his own came 
 to their relief. 
 
 " We had to talk," said The Prevaricator, think- 
 ing it necessary to oflFer an apology, " for you see we 
 had so very much to say to each other, and in the 
 presence of the flowers of The Pink Garden, where 
 we have had the privilege to live ever since my 
 arrival, mere affairs of the world are bad form." 
 
 After dinner that evening we went again to The 
 Garden Room, and whoUy ignored the new maga- 
 zines The Other One had brought home with him, 
 and which we had intended to read. This setting 
 aside of our purpose was owing to a. simple question 
 of The Prevaricator's. 
 
 " You have showed me your Book for Visitors to 
 Glencairn Hall," said she, "and have allowed me 
 to register my name there as well as in your more 
 exclusive Book for Visitors to The Pink Garden. 
 Have you also a book for the pink flower visitors 
 themselves ? " 
 
 168 
 
A GARDEN IN ?INK 
 
 "Why, no," said I, "that is, — only a common 
 note-book." 
 
 " Well, why not have a good one ? " said she. 
 
 " Why not, indeed I " said I. 
 
 " Why not ? " echoed The Other One. 
 
 " Let us start it to-night," said The Prevaricator. 
 " Wait five minutes ! " and away she went out of 
 The Garden Room, and pretty soon returned with 
 her work-basket and something mysteriously wrapped 
 in tissue paper. The latter she unfolded and laid in 
 my lap. 
 
 "That," said she, caressing the sweet, foreign- 
 scented object, "is a piece of real Italian brocade. 
 I picked it up in Florence, and it is just the thing 
 for the cover of The Pink Garden Book." 
 
 " It is, truly, O Prevaricator," said I, excitedly, 
 "but, — " 
 
 " Oh, you need not say anything, "= said she. " I in- 
 tended it for you, but your Pink Garden itself has 
 made me forget everything relating to the ordinary 
 life of mortals. I '11 make you thb cover to-night, 
 only you must leave a vdndow open toward The 
 Pink Garden, so I can smeU the wet, sweet things 
 to my heart's content, and then let us plan the 
 contents of this book." 
 
 Here The Other One rose to open one of the win- 
 dows in the bay, and then, whistling, he went toward 
 the door. 
 
 169 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 " I shall be back in five minutes," 
 said he, with a low bow to The Pre- 
 varicator, and disappeared. 
 
 When he returned he had in his 
 hands a larger obje6t than The Pre- 
 varicator's, but something likewise 
 mysteriously wrapped in tissue 
 paper. 
 
 " That," said he, removing the 
 wrappings, "is genuine, old Italian 
 parchment. I procured it at a 
 queer little shop in Venice, and it 
 is just the thing for the Book 
 itself." 
 
 " It is, truly, O Other One," said 
 I, excitedly, " but, — " 
 
 " Oh, you need not say anything," 
 said he. " It was intended for you, 
 though you yourself have made me 
 forget everything relating to the life 
 of ordinary mortals. I'U cut the 
 stuff into sheets to-night, only you 
 must persuade The Prevaricator not 
 to breathe up all the wet, sweet 
 odors from The Italian Terrace, as 
 I, too, shaU need their inspiration 
 (which last is a pun, and you may 
 have it)." 
 
 170 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 Then I rose to my feet, and fol- 
 lowing the example of the others, 
 said, — 
 
 " I shall be with you in five 
 minutes." 
 
 But I did not leave the room, for 
 what I wanted was in a little cup- 
 board in a far corner. When I came 
 back to the table I displayed a 
 small, common book, in which I had 
 been wise enough to record the date 
 of the first appearance of each in- 
 dividual variety of plant in The Pink 
 Garden. 
 
 "This," said I, "was not picked 
 up in Florence, nor yet procured 
 firom any shop in Venice, but, never- 
 theless, it is the most important of 
 all, for without it we could not have 
 a perfect record to copy into The 
 Pink Garden Book. If you two 
 will let me enjoy with you the wet, 
 sweet odors from The Italian Ter- 
 race, I shall be pleased to read you 
 what has happened thus far in The 
 Garden itself." 
 
 So, while the moist fragrant breeze 
 
 stole in at the open window, the 
 m 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 quaint, scented pink and green brocade was stretched 
 upon heavy cardboard, the whole lined with pink 
 satin that, upon request, came from The Prevari- 
 cator's work-basket ; under The Other One's deft 
 fingers the parchment was shaped into pages ; and 
 out of my common record-book came the story of 
 The Garden. We did not finish our work that even- 
 ing, for, as the weather promised to be equally 
 rainy the next day, we counted on another evening 
 indoors. Instead, we ceased our labors early. The 
 Other One went on a foraging trip to The Respectable 
 Part of the House, and when the secret panel was 
 opened we laughed as The Prevaricator's eyes widened 
 in surprise. 
 
 " Shall we — Oh, shall we ? " I asked, puUing The 
 Other One's sleeve. 
 
 " By aU means ! " he rephed ; then, turning about, 
 he said to her, — 
 
 "Would you hke to know the joy of being a 
 glorious, gorgeous bird swaying upside down on a 
 gold-thread vine bearing six wistaria sprays in six 
 different colors, and seven chrysanthemums, no two 
 of which are of the same hue ? " 
 
 I thought The Prevaricator would think him out 
 of his senses, but even if she did, she declared nothing 
 would give her more pleasure. 
 
 " Then," said he, " wait until you taste the tea 
 from one of those cups, and when the dreamy, 
 
 172 
 
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 ■ ■' "'TKvi**"'^ 
 
 K^ie;^ 
 
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 THE BEE-TKEE AND THE BBID&E 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 foreign, bambooy, rice-papery, embroidered aroma 
 fills the air, you wiQ know." 
 
 He played to us untU the tea was ready, and when 
 The Prevaricator's cup was empty, after the second 
 filling, she said, — 
 
 " O Other One, I know something of that joy you 
 described, and there is only one joy beside that is 
 worth mentioning with it. I am sorry I cannot pro- 
 vide the conditions necessary to an experience of it, 
 but a breath from your open coun'f;iy here, together 
 with the flavor of a Uttle, sweet, green, Italian pepper, 
 might give you an idea of the unspeakable joy of a 
 little cricket that nestles among the blue liUes on a 
 hUlside, with the blue, blue sky abo\"e, and the golden 
 sunshine all about — a cricket that sings happily aU 
 day long, with only one ambition, that it may faU 
 to him to be chosen as one among many crickets 
 taken each in a tiny wooden cage to the Mercato 
 in the town below, there to be sold as an Ascension 
 cricket, for Ascension-tide in Italy is the great event 
 for a cricket." 
 
 The Other One and I imagined as well as we 
 could what such an experience would be, and The 
 Prevaricator further helped us by singing a plaintive 
 song in Italian — a song she had learned from the 
 contadini of the hUls near Florence. Altogether, it 
 was a profitable evening, and we did not murmur 
 when the next day permitted us only three more 
 
 174 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 peeps at The Pink Garden, for we looked forward 
 to another cozy evening in The Garden Room. 
 Our third peep was taken at The pirds' Hour, and 
 a few wet, but apparently contented little fellows 
 flew down to pick up the crumbs we scattered. 
 
 That evening The Prevaricator finished the cover, 
 and The Other One cut the rest of the parchment 
 into pages, of which there were enough for a goodly 
 volume. Then we fastened them inside the cover, 
 and tied the whole with pink satin ribbons. It 
 was most effective, and I had the pleasure of seeing 
 The Other One inscribe on the title-page, — 
 
 "TifE Best Of All" 
 " Her Pink Garden Book " 
 
 The capital letters were so designed that he 
 could fill them in with colors, which he promised 
 to do by daylight. 
 
 So this was the beginning of my hand-iUuminated 
 Pink Garden Book, and I insisted that The'-Pre- 
 varicator write her autograph in it, with the name 
 of the place from which she brought the brocade, 
 and the date of the making of the cover. Below 
 I had The Other One write his name as Illumi- 
 nator, and the place where he procured the parch- 
 ment, with the date of the making of the book. 
 Then I wrote my own name as Recorder of The 
 
 Pink Garden, and entered as the first item the 
 
 irs 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 date of the finding of the arbutus 
 under the trees in the early Spring, 
 — the real beginning of The Garden 
 in Pink. 
 
 Then the sun came out, and we 
 lived no more in The Garden Room. 
 However, I kept my common little 
 book handy, in which to scribble 
 down Garden facts, to be copied on 
 rainy days into The Pink Garden 
 Book. The Other One said no mat- 
 ter what the weather, I was to be 
 found always in The Pink Garden, 
 — in fair weather in The Garden it- 
 self, and in stormy weather in The 
 Pink Garden Book. 
 
 In The Find-out Garden I had 
 sowed a large square of portulaca 
 seed, and on our way to The ItaUan 
 Terrace, on the first pleasant morn- 
 ing after the rainy days just de- 
 scribed, we saw maoy, many brilliant 
 buds opening to welcome the sun, — 
 pink, — both plain and striped, — red, 
 yellow, orange, all in many shades, 
 and one nearly lavender. Even 
 while we watched the petals opened 
 
 wide, and there were hosts of single 
 
 ire 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 and double blossoms. Now there 
 is one good thing about a portu- 
 laca. It can be transplanted in full 
 bloom, and the plant does not mind 
 a bit. Of course Vibgyora knew 
 this, and we found her on hand with 
 her trowel, ready to dig up such as 
 happened to fall to the portion of 
 The Garden of the Unmentionables. 
 She fairly gloated over her share, for, 
 truly, she had a glorious array. 
 
 " My ! But would n't you just like 
 to change your mind. Mis' Best Of 
 All?" said she. "See all them 
 gorgeous blossoms that you can't 
 have in your Pink Garden ! " 
 
 " Never I " said I, emphatically." 
 "For look here, — and here!" and 
 I pointed to the striped pinks, the 
 plain light pinks, and the plain dark 
 pinks of both single and double 
 varieties. " Take your gorgeous 
 host, and welcome, Vibgyora. I am 
 content to have these modest ones." 
 
 Giovanni came to transplant them 
 for me, but The Prevaricator and I 
 could not keep our fingers out of the 
 
 portulaca pie, and so we helped, too. 
 
 irr 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 I had them planted thickly about the pedestal of 
 The Sun-Dial, for once upon a time the portulaca 
 — in reality, the aristocratic form of the common 
 purslane — came from Brazil, where it was known as 
 the sun-plant because it opened only when the sun 
 shone. This pecuUarity made this plant seem the 
 most appropriate one to have next to the pedestal, 
 for a sun-dial, too, speaks only when the sun 
 shines. 
 
 When our new pink friends had grown used to 
 the change of soil, and had taken & firm hold in the 
 earth about The Sun-Dial, we were all sure that we 
 had made no mistake in this arrangement. What a 
 beautiful sight they were on each sunshiny day, as 
 they opened wide their cheerftil pink blossoms ! 
 There were hundreds of them planted closely to- 
 gether, although I had taken care that they did not 
 extend so far out from the pedestal as to prevent my 
 reaching over to the electric button easily. 
 
 One day I discovered that the tops of some of the 
 tender little portulaca buds were nibbled off, and 
 that others of them were scooped out inside ; 
 The Prevaricator and I watched for the greater 
 part of two days before we found out what did 
 the mischief. It was after the dew had begun 
 to fall, late in the afternoon, that The Prevaricator 
 pointed to the top of a fat bud. 
 
 "Look at that I " said she. " There is one villain! " 
 
 178 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 On top of the bud was a large snail, busily 
 engaged in feasting upon the unopened petals as 
 fast as he was able. With a stick I lifted him off, 
 and ran to the hedge about The Terrace and 
 dropped him over. Then we found more snaUs, 
 some of them crawling up the stems toward the 
 buds, and others, Uke the first snail, already de- 
 vouring the baby blossoms. For an hour The 
 Prevaricator and I did some real work. We col- 
 lected these snails with small trowels, and sent them 
 over the hedge after the first marauder. Even if 
 they could manage the long distance back, we 
 trusted they would find things enough beyond the 
 hedge to satisfy their appetites. 
 
 " I believe," said The Prevaricator, " that the snails 
 have been feeding upon the portulacas every night 
 right along, and that is the reason why we never have 
 seen them in the daytime. Of course snails hate the 
 
 " Yes," said I, " we have discovered the secret of 
 our nibbled blossoms now. I suppose The Other 
 One could have told us aU about it, but I did not 
 think to ask him at all." 
 
 " Nor I," said The Prevaricator. " Now, for the 
 ftin of the thing, let us ask him if he knows what 
 it is that spoils the blossoms." 
 
 " All right," I answered, " but I am sure he will 
 know, for he is so wise about bugs and such things. " 
 
 179 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 The Other One did know, for 
 when we asked him the question he 
 replied, — 
 
 "Wait until after tea and I will 
 show you the guilty ones." 
 
 Sure enough. When the time 
 came he took us to the bed at the 
 base of The Sun-Dial, and pointed to 
 a fat snail partaking of its evening 
 meal. 
 
 "Listen!" said he, after I had 
 come back to the portulacas, having 
 disposed of this snaU as we had 
 disposed of the others. "Do you 
 know how fine a thing it is if 
 one happens to be a SnaU in the 
 Portulaca Woods? Let me tell 
 you: — 
 
 " To be a snail is pleasant, indeed ; 
 but to be any kind of a snail, and 
 not a particular kind of a snail, is 
 another matter. For instance, any 
 kind of a snail may be one that lives 
 in a shell or out of a shell. The 
 shell snail may be an ocean snail, a 
 fresh-water snail, or a land snail, and 
 the snail minus a shell, like the last 
 named, may live on the land ; but 
 
 180 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the particular kind of a snail that 
 knows the joy of Uving is the one 
 lucky enough to have for his home 
 the beautiful, wild Portulaca Woods, 
 
 "The Portulaca Woods are situ- 
 ated in a Garden of other woods, and 
 even forests. There are the Petunia 
 Woods, the Bachelor's Buttons 
 Woods, the Verbena Woods, the 
 Phlox Woods, the Sweet-pea For- 
 est, the Larkspur Forest, the very 
 terrible Hollyhock Forest, and many- 
 others of like character. But of 
 aU these woods, the Portulaca Woods 
 are the best. 
 
 " If one is a Snail in the Portulaca 
 Woods, he lies quietly under the 
 loose earth, bits of twigs, or stones^ 
 if the day be fair, and thinks about 
 the very pleasantness of the weather, 
 for that is the way to enjoy a fine 
 day, if one is a Snail. Simply to 
 be still and out of the way are joy 
 enough. It is a foolish snail that 
 uncovers its head to find out how 
 the sun looks ! 
 
 "At night, when the sun has 
 stopped blinking, one feels the cool, 
 
 181 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 wet dew moistening one's skin, and then one knows 
 it is time to see the sights. One waits until the 
 ground is quite damp, for if one is a SnaU in the 
 Portulaca Woods, one's body is soft and tender, and 
 craves the soothing moisture. When the ground 
 is damp many obstacles already are overcome, there- 
 fore one waits. Then, when the ground is inviting 
 to the touch, one sallies forth, cautiously putting 
 forth one's horns as guides for a proper track, ex- 
 tending them and going forward steadUy, if all is 
 weU, drawing them in and recoUing if danger 
 threatens. Crawling over the ground like this is 
 all very well, but gives a limited view of the world 
 and provides no supper. When one finds nothing 
 to satisfy on one's own level, one looks higher. 
 
 " The Portulaca trees are ladders to one's ambi- 
 tions, and ladders easy to chmb, — that is, in the 
 evening ; for then they are cool and damp, and then 
 their branches shut together about the trunks, and 
 one travels faster over these closed branches than 
 if they remained outstretched to be clambered 
 around. If one is a Snail in the Portulaca Woods, 
 one gets more knowledge from the tops of the Portu- 
 laca trees than from all the volumes ever written ; 
 but it is a foolish snail that takes knowledge on an 
 empty stomach ! Therefore one investigates the 
 top of his Portulaca tree. 
 
 " Each Portulaca tree wears one or more hats of 
 
 182 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 some kind or another. If the hats of the tree in 
 which one happens to be are small and green, and 
 not easy to bite, they are too young for food. If 
 the hats are withered they are too stale, and if the 
 crowns of the hats are gone, and only deep basins 
 full of round balls, or even empty basins, remain, 
 they are far too old. In such a case one stretches 
 one's long, slim body over to the next tree, and travels 
 until he finds a colored hat of brUhant hue, or one 
 just showing color, and one bites into the sides or 
 dines off the tip-top until one's innermost being is 
 satisfied, and then one's uppermost being is ready 
 to assert itself. Then, if one is a Snail in the 
 Portulaca Woods, one learns many things. One 
 gossips with one's friends and hears the news of 
 the world. The fireflies from the gigantic Willow 
 Forest, where no snail ever has travelled, tell such 
 curious things as only a snail caji believe. The 
 crickets from the Grass Woods also add to these 
 wonderful tales, and one gets things from the wind 
 that are not to be heard on a pleasant day, down 
 under the loose earth. One sees the other forests 
 about one, — strange and mysterious to a snail that 
 never has explored them. Then one watches the 
 stars come out, and the moon, too, when she happens 
 to be in season ; and one spends the whole night in 
 the tops of the Portulaca trees, looking and listening. 
 " Then one sees the daylight begin to steal into 
 
 183 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 the sky, and one waits for a glimpse of the sun, for 
 it is quite harmless at that hour. A wise snail waits 
 only to make sure that the sun really is there, how- 
 ever, for soon the branches will stretch out to greet 
 the day, and the trunks wiU lose their delicious 
 coolness. Then, later, the fresh hats wiU open wide, 
 and if one is a thoughtful snaU one never Ukes to 
 see how much damage one's supper may have 
 caused ; so, before aU this happens, one wisely crawls 
 down the trunks back to the dark ground, and 
 hides under the loose earth, and thinks how pleasant 
 it all has been, and how fortunate one is to be a 
 Snail in the Portulaca Woods." 
 
 " Well," said The Prevaricator, " I can understand 
 that joy ! " 
 
 " So can I, O Other One," said I, sadly, as I 
 plucked another snail from the Portulaca Woods, 
 and thrust him gently over the hedge. 
 
 184 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 CONCERNING AN INTRUDER AND 
 THE BEE-TREE 
 
 REALLY," said The Pre- 
 varicator one afternoon, 
 as she glanced over the 
 sunht Italian Terrace — "really, 
 would one suppose there could be 
 so many different kinds of flowers 
 that blossom in pink 1 Think of 
 the long list you will have in your 
 Garden Book by the time the end 
 of the first season of your experi- 
 ment has come I " 
 
 " The list is long already," said 
 The Other One, as he picked up 
 my common little record book 
 that lay on the bench. " Here 
 are the names of some of them," 
 and he read aloud from the index. 
 " Though not in The Pink Gar- 
 den, arbutus comes first, because 
 it started the idea, and Spring- 
 beauties next, because they came 
 through the fence and tried to be 
 in The Pink Garden. Then there 
 are mountain-daisies, tulips, hya- 
 cinths, roses, flowering almond, 
 weigelia rosea, honey- suckle, 
 
 185 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 columbine, peonies, poppies, larkspurs, foxgloves, 
 bachelor's buttons, sweet-peas, phlox, verbenas, pinks, 
 balsams, hollyhocks, portulacas, and so on." 
 
 "There are hosts of others," said I — " enough to 
 make the list you have read more than twice as long. 
 Then think of the many kinds that have not blossomed 
 yet. Why, when the season is over, this Garden 
 Book will be a volume of goodly size, with the 
 descriptive matter and comments ! " 
 
 " Have you had any Unmentionable One blossom 
 in The Pink Garden by mistake ? " asked The 
 Prevaricator. 
 
 A twinkle came into The Other One's eye at 
 the question, and I laughed aloud at a sudden 
 remembrance. 
 
 " Tell her," said The Other One. 
 
 " Well," said I, " we did have the funniest time 
 with one tuhp I Giovanni came to me one fine 
 Spring day, when the first buds were showing color, 
 and said in a mysterious voice, ' Mis ' Best Of All, 
 I do wish you would come out to The Pink Garden 
 for a bit, if you please. I think softiething 's wrong 
 in the tulips.' Curious to see what it was, I followed 
 him to The Italian Terrace, and he pointed out a fat 
 bud in the act of splitting its green jacket, and said, 
 ' There, Mis' Best Of All, look at that I It seems 
 to me that inside color 's too bright for any good 
 decent tulip that calls itself pink, but I would n't 
 
 186 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 like to pull it up unless you say so.' I examined the 
 suspicious character closely. Surely, the color be- 
 neath the green jacket did seem rather brilliant as 
 compared with the paler tints of the other tulips, but 
 so little of the under dress was visible at present that 
 I could judge no better than could Giovanni. 
 
 " ' You wait a few minutes,' said he. ' What we 
 want is another one's opinion,' and he set off toward 
 the house. In the meantime, I had decided that this 
 tulip really was a pink one, only of a deeper shade 
 than that of my others. Soon Giovanni came back, 
 accompanied by Vibgyora. She was full of the 
 importance the occasion required, for, whenever her 
 husband condescended to ask her advice upon any 
 matter relating to gardening, she felt that she had a 
 right to hold her head two inches higher. She peered 
 down at the bud in a way designed to make a culprit 
 tremble with fright, and with much confidence de- 
 clared, ' That there bud won't be a pink tulip — no, 
 sir I I 've had too many tulips in my life not to 
 know the color of their complexions the minute the 
 outsides begin to open. That bud will come out red, 
 or I '11 miss my guess I ' 'I think,' said I, firmly, not 
 liking to change my mind, 'tliat it will be a deep 
 pink tulip.' ' All I can say, then,' said Vibgyora with 
 a superior air, ' is, that if I had set out to have a 
 Pink Garden I should keep it a Pink Garden. I 
 can tell you. Mis' Best Of All, that no tulip that 
 
 187 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 looks like that inside would set foot 
 in my Pink Garden 1 That tulip will 
 be red, and a good, bright red, too 1 ' 
 " ' Let us give the poor thing a 
 chance, anyway,' said I; 'and, Gio- 
 vanni, you watch closely now, and 
 the minute you find out the real color 
 of that bud you let=me know.' 
 
 " Vibgyora marched back without 
 another word, but with an air of 
 confidence very nearly audible. 
 With chagrin Giovanni and I saw 
 the bud grow redder and redder as 
 the green jacket parted. 'We won't 
 say nothin' 'bout this,' said Giovanni 
 in low tones. ' I '11 just take it out 
 after Vibgyory's gone home, and 
 like as not she'll forget all about 
 it.' 
 
 " However, Vibgyora did not for- 
 get. ' I see my predictions turned 
 out all right,' said she, loftily, the 
 next morning. ' Predictions ? ' I 
 queried, carelessly. 
 
 " ' What predictions be you talk- 
 in' 'bout, I 'd like to know ? ' said 
 Giovanni, who wai^ puUing weeds 
 when Vibgyora arrived. His efforts 
 
 188 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 to appear ignorant of her meaning 
 were painful to behold. -Well, of 
 all innercent critters,' said she, turn- 
 ing upon him, ' you are the guiltiest 
 one ever I see 1 Don't you s'pose I 
 know the tulips well enough in my 
 garden over there, — ' indicating Vib- 
 gyor, — 'to be able to tell if one is 
 taken out, or one put in, when I 
 ain't seen it done ? There don't no 
 tulip spring up in a garden and blos- 
 som in a single night, nowadays, and 
 I know just as well what happened 
 after I went hdme to get the supper 
 last night as though I was on the 
 spot. You two,' — now including 
 me in her address, — 'you two found 
 out that there tulip wasn't pink after 
 all ; so, when I was out of sight and 
 sound, you,' — pointing to me, — 
 ' says to Giovanni, " Remove it ! " 
 says you. And says he,' — and she 
 pointed to her husband, — ' says he, 
 " I 'U put it in Vibgyory's garden. 
 She won't know the difference, and 
 prob'ly she'll forget aU about it," 
 says he. If you think my notiein' 
 qualities is so poor, you come with 
 
 189 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 me, and I '11 show you the very fiery red tuUp that 
 only yesterday was growin' right here in this Pink 
 Garden. You'd better come along, any way, and I 'U 
 give you in exchange as fine a pink one as you ever 
 set eyes on, and that must have been right under 
 Giovanni's nose, only he wasn't smart enough to 
 see it, or else his deceitfulness blinded him for the 
 time.' 
 
 " Meekly, we followed her to The Garden of the 
 Unmentionables, and she pointed impressively to a 
 bright red tulip. 'That,' said she, 'is my predic- 
 tions I ' I recovered myself in time, as I was about 
 to hang my head in embarrassment, but Giovanni 
 Pincolini allowed his head to follow his feelings, and 
 stood downcast. ' That tulip is really a fine fellow,' 
 said I, ' and you need one of that size in that very 
 spot.' Vibgyora thrust her trowfel deep into the 
 earth underneath a beautiful pink tuhp next door to 
 the red one, and replied, 'I guess this'U be a good 
 one to set in place in that partic'lar spot in your 
 Garden, Mis' Best Of All.' 
 
 "When Giovanni took the tuhp to The Pink Gar- 
 den, he jabbed the earth so violently, and dug so 
 deep a hole, that I feared the Chinese would be the 
 ones to get the benefit of the plant; and when at last 
 it was set into the ground, I barely rescued it fi-om 
 death by drowning, for Giovanni started the water 
 running, held the hose directed at the poor victim, 
 
 190 
 

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 t3cl 
 
 --1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ' ■ i^mBBB 
 
 
 ■ 
 - 
 
 
 THE CAIRN — ANOTHER VIEW 
 
 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 and fell into a fit of musing upon things that evi- 
 dently did not pertain to the art of watering 
 plants." 
 
 " I think I almost can hear Vibgyora's scornful 
 sniff," laughed The Prevaricator, " and I can imagine 
 the expression on her face, too." 
 
 " The countenance of Giovanni was as interesting 
 to behold," said The Other One. 
 
 " I do not call that a bad record, at all," went on 
 The Prevaricator, after a bit. " To have only one 
 mistake among so many plants is remarkable, I 
 think." 
 
 " All the plants have not bloomed yet," said I. 
 " It will not do for us to boast until we have seen 
 what the gladioli, the asters, and the cosmos give us. 
 We are sure that they were bought for pink ones, 
 but there may be an ahen or two among them." 
 
 " At any rate," said The Prevaricator, " I have seen 
 no mistakes, and cannot be with you long enough to 
 see what wiU happen among the plants you have 
 named. Before they open their buds I shall be off 
 to the hurrying, scurrying city." 
 
 " Do not speak of it 1 " I cried, and The Other One 
 echoed my words. 
 
 " I have been idle too long already," said The 
 Prevaricator. " The place encourages me to pro- 
 crastinate. Out of sheer force of will I must flee 
 before I become enchanted beyond my power of 
 
 192 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 recovering. Why, look ! Is there anything in sight 
 "working at all ? " 
 
 " The ants," said The Other One, glancing down 
 at the ground. 
 
 "And the bees," said I, gazing at the flowers. 
 " Come, never mind your going away, now. If 
 that must be, let us talk of it later — not to-day. 
 There is time enough before dinner for us to take 
 a short walk along the path above the river bank. 
 I never thought to show you The Bee-tree until I 
 mentioned bees just now." 
 
 The Bee-tree is a little below the top of the bank, 
 but the trunk rises far above it. The Other One 
 has built a narrow walk with a railing at each side 
 out to the trunk. There he has made a seat and 
 a sort of shelf-table. The bushes on the bank are so 
 dense as to conceal the presence of this bridge, and 
 on a hot day, when one does not feel hke strolling 
 so far as The Pink Garden, it is pleasant to seek 
 this cool retreat among the trees, where one can 
 be shut in with an interesting book, or with one's 
 writing, without fear of being disturbed. Here 
 the murmur of the river and the wind in the tree- 
 branches soothe one's very soul. 
 
 " And the bees really live in that tree ? " asked 
 The Prevaricator, after her first exclamations of 
 wonder and delight. 
 
 " They do," said The Other One. " Sometimes, 
 
 193 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 if we tap on the trunk, we can 
 hear them hum inside." 
 
 " It does not look like a hoUow 
 tree," said she, and it certainly does 
 appear too substantial to be merely a 
 shell. I know it cannot be entirely 
 heartless, for its branches put forth 
 many leaves in the Spring, and al- 
 though it has lost a few gigantic arms, 
 the remaining ones are strong enough 
 to encourage more than one pair of 
 birds to entrust their nest to the 
 protecting embrace of the leafy- 
 monsters. 
 
 "What a spot this is for the 
 scene of a plot!" said The Pre- 
 varicator. "From this hidden look- 
 out one ought to see something 
 exciting ! " 
 
 "That reminds me," said I. 
 "Once I saw something that ap- 
 peared as though it might be excit- 
 ing. One evening, The Other One 
 being detained in the city across 
 the river until the nine o'clock 
 train, the outside world looked so 
 tempting that I came out here alone, 
 to see how it would* feel to sit in the 
 
 194 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 darkness, away from everybody. It 
 was all so weird when the bushes 
 shut me in ; and I experienced a 
 delicious, creepy feeling as, guided 
 by the raUings, I made my way out 
 to the seat by The Bee-tree. The 
 fireflies flickered in the branches 
 around and below me, and a wee 
 owl hooted startlingly near. I sat 
 perfectly quiet, and listened to the 
 night breeze, and wondered what 
 the leaves were saying as they rustled 
 so gently. The river murmured 
 placidly, and for a long time I heark- 
 ened to it. I could not see a light 
 from Glencairn Hall, but on the op- 
 posite bank, directly across from us, 
 — a lonesome spot, and far below the 
 city, — as I looked out through the 
 branches I saw a Ught that seemed 
 to come from a lantern waved in 
 the air. Three times it described a 
 circle, and then disappeared. While 
 I was wondering what it could mean, 
 the soft, running melody of the river 
 was disturbed, and a sound- as of 
 oars cautiously dipped came from 
 below. For a few seconds I held 
 
 191 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 my breath, — yes, the oar-strokes were no fancy, 
 and after some time a boat, dark and uncanny, 
 became visible to me through the one apertiu-e 
 in the branches where there is space enough to 
 see much of the river. ' Surely,' I thought, 
 ' that boat is rowed by some one of underhanded 
 intentions.' 
 
 "I was glad when The Other One's voice called 
 my name. I had been in the darkness alone long 
 enough. A little thrill of excitement — like that I 
 felt when I listened to the night voices of Nature — 
 is good for one, but a nervous dread, as of possible 
 mischief in the air, is to be avoided. The Other 
 One said my hands were cold, and wondered at my 
 wandering off there alone. I told him about the 
 lantern and the boat, and he said he thought the 
 lantern was a signal, and that doubtless smugglers 
 were at work ; for you know our river divides two 
 countries." 
 
 " You must have been glad to see the hghts of 
 Glencairn Hall that night," said The Prevaricator. 
 " Before I go I must be allowed to spend a lone- 
 some half-hour at night on this seat, for I see pos- 
 sibilities of a future tale, and I must experience some 
 of the atmosphere of my descriptive matter." 
 
 "You shall have a bell, too," said I, "and then if 
 you are scared, you — " 
 
 But The Prevaricator laughed me to scorn. 
 
 196 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE PINK GARDEN SLEEPS 
 
 AS the Summer advanced 
 The Pink Garden grew 
 more and more charming. 
 Not only were the sight and scent 
 of the blossoms a delight, but the 
 songs, too, became sweeter and 
 sweeter. In the beginning we 
 had heard the voices of the feath- 
 ered singers, and as the Spring 
 crept over the land we could 
 keep track of the newcomers, as 
 the mildness of the air brought 
 them from the South, flock by- 
 flock. The frogs, too, could be 
 h,eard distinctly in the meadows 
 near by. The sounds became 
 greater in variety, as day after 
 day passed. The jubilant first 
 notes of the birds grew more 
 tender in nesting time. In the 
 evening one could hear the little 
 screech-owls in The Woods, and 
 the night-hawks far above in 
 the sky. By and by, at dusk, 
 bats flew about recklessly, and 
 swooped close to the flowers, — 
 
 197 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 one could hear the sound of their wings as they 
 swept past one's head. 
 
 When Summer came things were merrier. The 
 twitter of the swallows was in evidence; the bees 
 buzzed happily all day long ; and the voice of The 
 Brook, far down in The Glen, was answered by the 
 wind in the trees above; whUe the foimtain in 
 The Garden bubbled musically. Then the katy- 
 dids, the tree-toads, and the grasshoppers and crickets 
 took matters in charge. What a time they did have ! 
 Each seemed to be trying to outdo the others. 
 
 In the height of all this The Prevaricator took 
 her departure. At first it seemed as though we 
 could not let her go. As The Other One said, 
 it was almost like pulling up some portion of The 
 Pink Garden. The Prevaricator showed us how 
 necessary it was for her to make final arrangements 
 with her publishers in the bringing out of a volume 
 of her prevarications. 
 
 "It is harder for me to leave," said she, "than 
 it is for you to have me. I can assure you that 
 my roots are embedded deeply in The Pink Garden, 
 and my going will be, in very truth, the tearing 
 of myself away. How I shall niiss you and the 
 dear Italian Terrace ! Not to be able to sit all 
 day in the sunshine by The Sun-Dial wlU be sad 
 indeed, — I hardly can bear to think of it ; and there 
 is only one thought that partly consoles me for my 
 
 198 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 loss, — the fact of my coming back to you in the 
 Winter-time." 
 
 In emphatic terms we had given her to understand 
 that we expected her to come to us again as soon as 
 she could, and she had promised to do so, but had set 
 the time of her second visit for the holiday season, 
 saying that she had much writing to do, and that she 
 knew work would be impossible to her under the 
 spell of Glencairn HaU. 
 
 I took The Prevaricator into my confidence and 
 told her what I had planned to do to the walls of 
 The Garden Room, and described to her my pro- 
 posed portieres of beads and rushes. That came as 
 near tempting her to stay as any argument could, for 
 I promised her enough work to insiu-e against any 
 cause for complaint of idleness. 
 
 " I can almost see the fun you wiU have," said she. 
 " When the seeds from your Pink Garden are all in, 
 you will have long, busy, cheerful hours in The 
 Garden Room. All the time I shall be vdshing for 
 the hohdays to draw nigh, so that I can see the 
 transformation. But above aU pleasures will be that 
 of the long, peacefiil talks with you and The Other 
 One — the hours when we shall remain silent to listen 
 to The Other One while he plays to us ; and then 
 those deUcious little feasts to wind up with — 1 am 
 impatient already I " 
 
 " And you must come armed with all of your 
 
 199 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 prevarications," said I. "We shall expect that of 
 you, and must have another experience of your 
 Itahan enchantment." 
 
 " All right," she agreed. " I shall appear with a 
 string of the httle sweet peppers about my neck, and 
 shall take pleasure in carrying you both off to certain 
 rosy, cyclamen-clad hills I know." 
 
 We missed The Prevaricator as we knew we 
 should, and The Pink Garden showed its sorrow, 
 too, as gradually the season of most of the flowers 
 drew to an end. The fountain kept up its tinkle, 
 but the shadow on The Sun-Dial grew more and 
 more lazy, arriving later and later each morning, 
 and leaving far too early every afternoon. The 
 gladioli, asters, and cosmos bloomed in profusion and 
 kept up appearances for some time ; but the voice of 
 the crickets and of the pale August croakers grew 
 slower and more plaintive, and the song of the 
 grasshopper ceased. 
 
 It was good to see the cosmos so brave. I was 
 glad I had filled in every possible space with him, 
 too, for he stretched out his graceful, feathery arms 
 to hide the fallen companions, and smUingly opened 
 his blossoms on days when it seemed as though his 
 pink petal fingers fairly must ache with the cold. 
 
 The making of the wall-coverings and portieres 
 kept my thoughts and hands busy, and so did the 
 putting away of my seeds. I had a chance, too, of 
 
 200 
 
A GARDEN IN PINK 
 
 becoming re-acquainted with Glencairn Hall, all of 
 which experiences were welcome and charming. 
 
 When, at last. The Garden Room was decorated 
 to our satisfaction, we began to plan how we should 
 deck it with Christmas greens, in honor of The Pre- 
 varicator's return to Glencairn HaU. 
 
 The seeds quietly lie dreaming in their snug nests 
 in box, cupboard, and drawer, while they uncon- 
 sciously absorb the tones of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, 
 Schumann, Mendelssohn, and of others of a privi- 
 leged company. Surely aU this promises even better 
 results for The Itahan Terrace of the coming year. 
 
 Last night, during a pause, I climbed to the piano 
 bench, and whispered, — 
 
 " O dear Other One — next year it shall be pink I " 
 and The Other One smiled and nodded at the rows 
 of sleeping seeds, for this time he knew that T spoke 
 of a certain sunny Italian Terrace. 
 
 201 
 
1 
 
 >ll 
 
 '''i'Wiili 
 
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