"I know nothing more pleasant than the half kitchen, half flower-garden ; — the few trees that extend a light shade — either the apple, with its spring shower of fair blossoms, and its summer show of fruit, reddening every day ; or the cherry, with its scarlet multitude — berries more numerous than leaves. Below, long rows of peas put forth their white-winged flowers, tempting the small butterflies to flutter round their inanimate likenesses ; or else of beans, whose fresh, sweet odour, when in bloom, might challenge competition with the sea gales of the spice islands. Then the deep glossy green of the gooseberry is so well relieved by the paler shade of the currant-bush ; and alongside, spreading the verdant length of the strawberry-bed, so beautiful in its first wealth of white blossoms — pale omens of the blushing fruit, which so soon hides beneath its large and graceful leaves. The strawberry is among fruits what the violet is among flowers. Then, I do so like the one or two principal walks, neatly edged with box, cut with most precise regularity, keeping guard over favourite plants : — columbines, bending on their slender stems ; rose-bushes, covered with buds enough to furnish roses for months ; pinks, with their dark eyes ; and the orient glow of the marigold. And there are the neat plots planted with thyme, so sweet in its crushed fragrance ; the sage, with that touch of hoar-frost on its leaves, which, perhaps, has gained for it its popular name of wisdom ; the sprig of lavender, so lastingly sweet ; and the emerald patches of the rapidly springing mustard and cress. I would not give a common garden like this, with the free air tossing its boughs, and the sun laughing upon its flowers, for all that glass and gardener ever brought from a hot-house."