novations,--he does not! He says that turf lifted in summer always
lies uneasy and breeds worms.

This seems to be an age for the defiance of horticultural tradition, for
we are finding out every day that you can "lift" almost anything of
herbaceous growth at any time and make it live, if you are willing to
take pains enough, though of course transplanting is done with less
trouble and risk at the prescribed seasons.

The man-with-the-shovel question is quite a serious one hereabouts at
present, for the Water Company has engaged all the rough-and-ready
labourers for a long season and that has raised both the prices and
the noses of the wandering accommodators in the air. Something will
probably turn up. Now we are transplanting hardy ferns; for though the
tender tops break, there is yet plenty of time for a second growth and
rooting before winter.

[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE OLD ORCHARD.
Copyright, 1903, H. Hendrickson.]

Meanwhile there is a leisurely old carpenter who recently turned up as
heir of the Opal Farm, Amos Opie by name, who is thinking of living
there, and has signified his willingness to undertake the pergola by
hour's work, "if he is not hustled," as soon as the posts arrive.

The past ten days have been full of marvellous discoveries for the
"peculiar Penroses," as Maria Maxwell heard us called down at the Golf
Club, where she represented me at the mid-June tea, which I had wholly
forgotten that I had promised to manage when I sent out those P.P.C.
cards and stopped the clocks!

It seems that the first impression was that financial disaster had
overtaken us, when instead of vanishing in a touring car preceded by
tooting and followed by a cloud of oil-soaked steam, we took to our own
woods, followed by Barney with our effects in a wheelbarrow. It is a
very curious fact--this attributing of every action a bit out of the
common to the stress of pocket hunger. It certainly proves that
advanced as we are supposed to be to-day as links in the evolutionary
chain, we have partially relapsed and certainly show strong evidences of
sheep ancestry.

Haven't you noticed, Mrs. Evan, how seldom people are content to accept
one's individual tastes or desire to do a thing without a good and
sufficient reason therefor? It seems incomprehensible to them that any
one should wish to do differently from his neighbour unless from
financial incapacity; the frequency with which one is suspected of being
in this cond