lovely in their silvery faint tints that they resemble gigantic roses,
it is absolutely wicked to suffer those odious red ones to pervert one's
taste; that a person who sees nothing but those every time he looks out
of his window very quickly has his nice perception for true beauty
blunted; that such a person would do well to visit my garden every day
during the month of May, and so get himself cured by the sight of my
peony bushes covered with huge scented white and blush flowers; and that
he would, I was convinced, at the end of the cure, go home and pitch his
own on to the dust-heap. But of what earthly use would it have been?
Pointing out the difference between what is beautiful and what misses
beauty to a Frau Inspector of forty, whose chief business it is to make
butter, is likely to be singularly unprolific of good results; and,
further, experience has taught me that whenever anything is on the tip
of my tongue the best thing to do is to keep it there. I wonder why a
woman always wants to interfere.

It is a pity, nevertheless, that this lady should be so wanting in the
aesthetic instinct, for her garden is full of possibilities. It lies due
south, sheltered on the north, east, and west by farm buildings, and is
rich in those old fruit-trees and well-seasoned gooseberry bushes that
make such a good basis for the formation of that most delightful type of
little garden, the flower-and-fruit-and-vegetable-mixed sort. She has,
besides, an inestimable slimy, froggy pond, a perpetual treasure of
malodorous water, much pined after by thirsty flowers; and then does she
not live in the middle of a farmyard flowing with fertilising properties
that only require a bucket and a shovel to transform them into roses?
The way in which people miss their opportunities is melancholy.

This pond of hers, by the way, is an object of the liveliest interest to
the babies. They do not seem to mind the smell, and they love the slime,