necessary but uninspired crust, while you will supply the filling of
fragrant berries.

With the beginning of your vacation begin my questions domestic that
threaten to overbalance your questions horticultural. If the Infant
should wail at night, do you expect to stay quietly out "in camp" and
not steal on tiptoe to the house, and at least peep in at the window?
Also, you have put a match-making thought in a head swept clean of all
such clinging cobwebs since Sukey Crandon married Carthy Latham and,
turning their backs on his ranch experiment, they decided to settle near
the Bradfords at the Ridge, where presently there will be another garden
growing. If you have no one either in the family or neighbourhood likely
to attract _The Man from Everywhere_, why may we not have him? Jane
Crandon is quite unexpectedly bright, as frank as society allows, this
being one of his requirements, besides having grown very pretty since
she has virtually become daughter to Mrs. Jenks-Smith and had sufficient
material in her gowns to allow her chest to develop.

But more of this later; to return to the annuals, I understand that you
have had your hardy beds prepared and that you want something to
brighten them, as summer tenants, until early autumn, when the permanent
residents may be transplanted from the hardy seed bed.

Annuals make a text fit for a very long sermon. Verily there are many
kinds, and the topic forms easily about a preachment, for they may be
divided summarily into two classes, the worthy and the unworthy, though
the worth or lack of it in annuals, as with most of us humans, is a
matter of climate, food, and environment, rather than inherent original
sin. The truth is, nature, though eternally patient and good-natured,
will not be hurried beyond a certain point, and the life of a flower