d need not waste time explaining what I want done to somebody else. It
is dull work giving orders and trying to describe the bright visions of
one's brain to a person who has no visions and no brain, and who thinks
a yellow bed should be calceolarias edged with blue.

I have taken care in choosing my yellow plants to put down only those
humble ones that are easily pleased and grateful for little, for my soil
is by no means all that it might be, and to most plants the climate is
rather trying. I feel really grateful to any flower that is sturdy and
willing enough to flourish here. Pansies seem to like the place and
so do sweet-peas; pinks don't, and after much coaxing gave hardly any
flowers last summer. Nearly all the roses were a success, in spite of
the sandy soil, except the tea-rose Adam, which was covered with buds
ready to open, when they suddenly turned brown and died, and three
standard Dr. Grills which stood in a row and simply sulked. I had been
very excited about Dr. Grill, his description in the catalogues being
specially fascinating, and no doubt I deserved the snubbing I got.
"Never be excited, my dears, about anything," shall be the advice I will
give the three babies when the time comes to take them out to parties,
"or, if you are, don't show it. If by nature you are volcanoes, at least
be only smouldering ones. Don't look pleased, don't look interested,
don't, above all things, look eager. Calm indifference should be written
on every feature of your faces. Never show that you like any one person,
or any one thing. Be cool, languid, and reserved. If you don't do as
your mother tells you and are just gushing, frisky, young idiots, snubs
will be your portion. If you do as she tells you, you'll marry princes
and live happily ever after."

Dr. Grill must be a German rose. In this part of the world the more you
are pleased to see a person the less is he pleased to see you; whereas,
if you are disagreeable, he will grow pleasant visibly, his countenance
expanding into wider amiability the more your own is stiff and sour. But
I was not Prepared for that sort of thing in a rose, and was disgusted
with Dr. Grill. He had the best place in the garden--warm, sunny, and
sheltered; his holes were prepared with the tenderest care; he was given
the most dainty mixture of compost, clay, and manure; he was watered
assiduously all through the drought when more willing flowers got
nothing; and he refused to do anything but