capable of enjoying themselves. They should be welcomed and sped
with equal heartiness; for truth compels me to confess that,
though it pleases me to see them come, it pleases me just as much
to see them go.

On some very specially divine days, like today, I have actually
longed for some one else to be here to enjoy the beauty with me.
There has been rain in the night, and the whole garden seems to
be singing--not the untiring birds only, but the vigorous plants,
the happy grass and trees, the lilac bushes--oh, those lilac bushes!
They are all out to-day, and the garden is drenched with the scent.
I have brought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every
pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory,
and the servants think there is going to be a party and are extra nimble,
and I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows
are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without;
and the servants gradually discover that there is no party,
and wonder why the house should be filled with flowers for one woman
by herself, and I long more and more for a kindred spirit--
it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself--but kindred
spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon.
It is true that my garden is full of friends, only they are--dumb.


June 3rd.--This is such an out-of-the-way corner of the world that it
requires quite unusual energy to get here at all, and I am thus delivered
from casual callers; while, on the other hand, people I love, or people
who love me, which is much the same thing, are not likely to be deterred
from coming by the roundabout train journey and the long drive at the end.
Not the least of my many blessings is that we have only one neighbour.