"MARY P."

"She must join The Garden, You, and I," said Lavinia Cortright, almost
before I had finished the letter. "She will be entertainer in chief, for
she never fails to be amusing!"

"I thought there were to be but three members," I protested, thinking of
the possible complications of a three-cornered correspondence.

"Ah, well," Lavinia Cortright replied quickly, "make the Garden an
_Honorary_ member; it is usual so to rank people of importance from whom
much is expected, and then we shall still be but three--with privilege
of adding your husband as councillor and mine as librarian and custodian
of deeds!"

So I have promised to write to Mary Penrose this evening.




III

CONCERNING HARDY PLANTS

THE SEED BED FOR HARDY FLOWERS


When the Cortrights first came to Oaklands, expecting to remain here but
a few months each summer, their garden consisted of some borders of
old-fashioned, hardy flowers, back of the house. These bounded a