But where was his great-coat?--

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

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

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

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

Please most gratefully thank the girls for me.

Yours gratefully and affectionately, J.H.E.

TO THE REV. J. GOING.

All Fools, 1884.

MY DEAR HEAD GARDENER,

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

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

To-day

"a balmy south wind blows."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Puppy Dog's Tails--

my worst enemy is--WIND!

The laurels are growing--for that matter, Xmas is coming!--but still we are very shelterless. I think I would like to plant in Bed A, _inter alia_--some shrubby things. Now I know your views about moving shrubs are somewhat wider than those of the every-day gardener's--but do you think I dare plant a bush of lauristinus now? It would have to travel a little way, I fancy. There is no man actually in Taunton, I fear, with good shrubs. I mean also to get some j.a.panese maples. I think I would like a copper-coloured-leaved _nut tree_. Are nuts hardy? I fear Gum Cistus is coming into flower--and unfit to move! How about rhododendrons? The soil here is said to suit them wonderfully. I could not pretend to buy peat for them--but I know hardy sorts will do in a firm fair soil, and I should like to plant a lilac one--a crimson--a blush--and a white. I think they would do fairly and shelter small fry.

_Can I risk it now?_ and how about hardy azaleas--things I love! If you say--we are too near summer sun for them to get established--I must wait till Autumn.

How has Mrs. Going stood the biting winds? Very unfavourable for one's aches and pains?

Tell her I have got one of those rather queer yellow flowers you condescended to notice!--to bring to her after Easter.

Is it not terrible about Prince Leopold? That poor young wife--and the Queen! What bitter sorrow she has known; also I do regard the loss as a great one for the country, he was so enlightened and so desirous of use in his generation.

Yours, J.H.E.

TO MRS. JELF.

MY DEAREST MARNY,

Thank you, dear, with much love for your Easter card. It is LOVELY (and Easter cards are not very beautiful as a rule).

It is on a little stand on my knick-knack table--and looks so well!

I send you a few bits from my garden as an Easter Greeting. They are not much--but we are in a "nip" of bitter N.E. winds--and nothing will "come out."

Also I rather denuded my patch to send a large box to Undine to make the Easter wreaths for my Mother's grave. I was really rather proud of what I managed to sc.r.a.pe together--every bit out of my very own patch--and consequently of my very own planting!

I've got neuralgia to-day with the wind and a fourteen-miles drive for luncheon and two sets of callers since I got back!--so I can't write a letter--but I want you to tell me when you think there's a chance of your taking a run to see me! I seem to have such lots to say! I have found another charm (besides red pots) of our market. If one goes _very early_ on Sat.u.r.day--one gets such nice old-fashioned flowers, "roots," and big ones too--very cheap! It's a most fascinating _ruination by penny-worths_!

Good luck to you, dear, in your fresh settling down in the Heimath Land.

Mrs. M---- (where we were _lunching_) asked tenderly after my large young family--as strangers usually do. Then she said, "But you write so sympathetically of children, and 'A Soldier's Children' is so real--I thought they MUST be yours." On which I explained the Dear Queers to her. To whom be love! and to Richard.

Ever, dear, yours lovingly, J.H.E.

TO MRS. GOING.

Midsummer Day, 1884.

MY DEAR MRS. GOING,

Not a moment till now have I found--to tell you I got home safe and sound, and that your delicious cream was duly and truly appreciated!

The last of it was merged in an admirable Gooseberry Fool!

The roses suffered by the hot journey--but even the least flourishing of them received great admiration--from their size--as the skeletons of saurians make a smaller world stand aghast!!!

This last sentence smacks of Jules Verne! I don't care much for him--after all. It is rather _bookmaking_.