r's soul; which is on the face of
it foolish, the probability being that he hasn't got one.

The rockets are all out. The gardener, in a fit of inspiration, put them
right along the very front of two borders, and I don't know what his
feelings can be now that they are all flowering and the plants behind
are completely hidden; but I have learned another lesson, and no future
gardener shall be allowed to run riot among my rockets in quite so
reckless a fashion. They are charming things, as delicate in colour as
in scent, and a bowl of them on my writing-table fills the room with
fragrance. Single rows, however, are a mistake; I had masses of them
planted in the grass, and these show how lovely they can be. A border
full of rockets, mauve and white, and nothing else, must be beautiful;
but I don't know how long they last nor what they look like when they
have done flowering. This I shall find out in a week or two, I suppose.
Was ever a would-be gardener left so entirely to his own blundering? No
doubt it would be a gain of years to the garden if I were not forced to
learn solely by my failures, and if I had some kind creature to tell
me when to do things. At present the only flowers in the garden are the
rockets, the pansies in the rose beds, and two groups of azaleas--mollis
and pontica. The azaleas have been and still are gorgeous; I only
planted them this spring and they almost at once began to flower, and
the sheltered corner they are in looks as though it were filled with
imprisoned and perpetual sunsets. Orange, lemon, pink in every delicate
shade--what they will be next year and in succeeding years when the
bushes are bigger, I can imagine from the way they have begun life. On
gray, dull days the effect is absolutely startling. Next autumn I shall
make a great bank of them in front of a belt of fir trees in rather a
gloomy nook. My tea-roses are covered with buds which will not open for
at least another week, so I conclude this is not the sort of climate
where they will flower from the very beginning of June to November, as
they are said to do.

July 11th.--There has been no rain since the day before Whitsunday,
five weeks ago, which partly, but not entirely, accounts for the
disappointment my beds have been. The dejected gardener went mad soon
after Whitsuntide, and had to be sent to an asylum. He took to going
about with a spade in one hand and a revolver in the other, explaining
that he felt safer that way, and