destroyed its
vitality--I may, perchance, send you some of your own poppies to deck
your London rooms. You cannot think--or rather I have no doubt that
you can!--the refreshment my bit of garden is to me. It has become so
dear, that (like an ugly face one loves and ceases to see plain!)--I
find it so charming that it is _with a start_ that I recognize that
new friends see no beauty in--

[_Sketch._]

This four-square patch!!

But A and B are "beds," and there are borders under the brick walls,
and a rose-growing admirer of "Laetus" made a pilgrimage to see
me!--and brought me nineteen grand climbing roses--and wall S faces
_nearly quite_ south, and on it grow Marechal Niel, and Cloth of Gold,
and Charles Lefebvre, and Triomphe de Rennes, and a Banksia and
Souvenir de la Malmaison, and Cheshunt Hybrid, and a bit of the old
Ecclesfield summer white rose--sent by Undine--and some Passion
Flowers from dear old Miss Child in Derbyshire--and a _Wistaria_ which
the old lady of _the lodgings_ we were in when we first came, tore up,
and gave to me, with various other _oddments_ from her garden!
and--the American Bramble! And also, by the bye, a very lovely rose,
"Fortune's Yellow,"--given to me by a friend in Hampshire.

Major Ewing declares my borders are "so full _there is no room for
more_" which is very nasty of him!--but I have been very lucky in
preserving, and even multiplying, the various contributions my bare
patch has been blessed with! D. sent me a _barrel_ of bits last autumn
from the Vicarage, and Reginald sent me an excellent hamper from
Bradfield, and Col. Yeatman sent me a hamper from Wiltshire, and
several friends here have given me odds and ends, and our old friend
Miss Sulivan, before she went abroad, sent me a farewell memorial of
sweet things--Lavender, Rosemary, Cabbage Rose, Moss Rose, and
Jessamine!!!--Oh! talking of sweet things, I must tell you--I went
into the market here one day this last autumn, and of a man standing
there--I bought a dug-up clump of BAY _tree_--for 2/6.

You know how you indulged my senses with bay leaves when I was far
from them? Well, I put my clump and myself into a cab and went
home--where I pulled my clump to pieces and made eight nice plants of
him--and set me a bay hedge, which has thriven so far very well!!! But
then--'tis a Green Winter!

Now I want to know if there is a chance of tempting you down here for
a little visit? I have thought that perhaps some time in th