table
decoration, a fragrant reminder of Shakespeare's lines in "A Winter's
Tale":

"Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping."

The rare aroma of sweet marjoram reminds so many city people of their
mother's and their grandmother's country gardens, that countless muslin
bags of the dried leaves sent to town ostensibly for stuffing poultry
never reach the kitchen at all, but are accorded more honored places in
the living room. They are placed in the sunlight of a bay window where
Old Sol may coax forth their prisoned odors and perfume the air with
memories of childhood summers on the farm.

Other memories cling to the delicate little lavender, not so much
because the owner of a well-filled linen closet perfumed her spotless
hoard with its fragrant flowers, but because of more tender
remembrances. Would any country wedding chest be complete without its
little silk bags filled with dried lavender buds and blooms to add the
finishing touch of romance to the dainty trousseau of linen and lace?
What can recall the bridal year so surely as this same kindly lavender?

A DINNER OF HERBS

In an article published in _American Agriculturist_, Dora M. Morrell
says: "There is an inference that a dinner of herbs is rather a poor
thing, one not to be chosen as a pleasure. Perhaps it might be if it
came daily, but, for once in a while, try this which I am going to tell
you.

"To prepare a dinner of herbs in its best estate you should have a bed
of seasonings such as our grandmothers had in their gardens, rows of
sage, of spicy mint, sweet marjoram, summer savory, fragrant thyme,
tarragon, chives and parsley. To these we may add, if we take herbs in
the Scriptural sense, nasturtium, and that toothsome esculent, the
onion, as well as lettuce. If you wish a dinner of herbs and have not
the fresh, the dried will serve, but parsley and mint you can get at
most times in the markets, or in country gardens, where they often grow
wild.

"Do you know, my sister housewife, that if you were to have a barrel
sawed in half, filled with good soil, some holes made in the side and
then placed the prepared half barrel in the sun, you could have an herb
garden of your own the year through, even if you live in a city flat? In
the holes at the sides you can plant parsley, and it will grow to cover
the barrel, so that you have a bank of gre