of fir trees in rather a gloomy nook. My tea-roses are covered
with buds which will not open for at least another week,
so I conclude this is not the sort of climate where they
will flower from the very beginning of June to November,
as they are said to do.

July 11th.--There has been no rain since the day before Whitsunday,
five weeks ago, which partly, but not entirely, accounts for the
disappointment my beds have been. The dejected gardener went mad
soon after Whitsuntide, and had to be sent to an asylum. He took
to going about with a spade in one hand and a revolver in the other,
explaining that he felt safer that way, and we bore it quite patiently,
as becomes civilised beings who respect each other's prejudices,
until one day, when I mildly asked him to tie up a fallen creeper--
and after he bought the revolver my tones in addressing him
were of the mildest, and I quite left off reading to him aloud--
he turned round, looked me straight in the face for the first time
since he has been here, and said, "Do I look like Graf X- --(a great
local celebrity), or like a monkey?" After which there was nothing
for it but to get him into an asylum as expeditiously as possible.
There was no gardener to be had in his place, and I have only
just succeeded in getting one; so that what with the drought,
and the neglect, and the gardener's madness, and my blunders,
the garden is in a sad condition; but even in a sad condition it
is the dearest place in the world, and all my mistakes only make
me more determined to persevere.

The long borders, where the rockets were, are looking dreadful.
The rockets have done flowering, and, after the manner of rockets:
in other walks of life, have degenerated into sticks;