n his constant use of this new convenience),
is making good way between ninety and a hundred years of age. What we
call old-fashioned flowers were the pets of his youth. About the time
when ribbon-bordering "came in," he changed his residence, and, in the
garden where he had cultivated countless kinds of perennials, his son
reigned in his stead. The horticultural taste proved hereditary, but
in the younger man it took the impress of the fashion of his day.
Away went the "herbaceous stuff" on to rubbish heaps, and the borders
were soon gay with geraniums, and kaleidoscopic with calceolarias. But
"the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges," and, perhaps, a real
love for flowers could never, in the nature of things, have been
finally satisfied by the dozen or by the score; so it came to pass
that the garden is once more herbaceous, and far-famed as such. The
father--a _perennial_ gardener in more senses than one, long may he
flourish!--has told me, chuckling, of many a penitential pilgrimage to
the rubbish heaps, if haply fragments could be found of the herbaceous
treasures which had been so rashly cast away.

Doubtless there were many restorations. Abandoned "bedding stuff" soon
perishes, but uprooted clumps of "herbaceous stuff" linger long in
shady corners, and will sometimes flower pathetically on the heap
where they have been thrown to rot.

I once saw a fine Queen Anne country house--an old one; not a modern
imitation. Chippendale had made the furniture. He had worked in the
house. Whether the chairs and tables were beautiful or not is a matter
of taste, but they were well made and seasoned; so, like the
herbaceous stuff, they were hardy. The next generation decided that
they were ugly. New chairs and tables were bought, and the Chippendale
"stuff" was sent up into the maids' bedrooms, and down to the men's.
It drifted into the farmhouses and cottages on the estate. No doubt a
good deal was destroyed. The caprices of fashion are not confined to
one class, and the lower classes are the more prodigal and
destructive. I have seen the remains of Elizabethan bedsteads under
hay-ricks, and untold "old oak" has fed the cottage fire. I once asked
a village maiden why the people made firewood of carved arm-chairs,
when painted pinewood, upholstered in American cloth, is, if lovelier,
not so lasting. Her reply was--"They get stalled on[3] 'em." And she
added: "Maybe a man 'll look at an old arm-chair that's stood on t'
he