we bore it quite patiently, as becomes
civilised beings who respect each other's prejudices, until one day,
when I mildly asked him to tie up a fallen creeper--and after he bought
the revolver my tones in addressing him were of the mildest, and I quite
left off reading to him aloud--he turned round, looked me straight in
the face for the first time since he has been here, and said, "Do I look
like Graf X---- ----(a great local celebrity), or like a monkey?"
After which there was nothing for it but to get him into an asylum as
expeditiously as possible. There was no gardener to be had in his place,
and I have only just succeeded in getting one; so that what with the
drought, and the neglect, and the gardener's madness, and my blunders,
the garden is in a sad condition; but even in a sad condition it is
the dearest place in the world, and all my mistakes only make me more
determined to persevere.

The long borders, where the rockets were, are looking dreadful. The
rockets have done flowering, and, after the manner of rockets: in other
walks of life, have degenerated into sticks; and nothing else in those
borders intends to bloom this summer. The giant poppies I had planted
out in them in April have either died off or remained quite small, and
so have the columbines; here and there a delphinium droops unwillingly,
and that is all. I suppose poppies cannot stand being moved, or perhaps
they were not watered enough at the time of transplanting; anyhow, those
borders are going to be sown to-morrow with more poppies for next year;
for poppies I will have, whether they like it or not, and they shall not
be touched, only thinned out.

Well, it is no use being grieved, and after all, directly I come out and
sit under the trees, and look at the dappled sky, and see the sunshine
on the cornfields away on the plain, all the disappointment smooths
itself out, and it seems impossible to be sad and discontented when
everything about me is so radiant and kind.

To-day is Sunday, and the garden is so quiet, that, sitting here in this
shady corner watching the lazy shadows stretching themselves across the
grass, and listening to the rooks quarrelling in the treetops, I almost
expect to hear English church bells ringing for the afternoon service.
But the church is three miles off, has no bells, and no afternoon
service. Once a fortnight we go to morning prayer at eleven and sit
up in a sort of private box with a room behind, whither we c