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278 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, with its dim and deep blue blossom, 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.

Many a quiet hour did Guido pass in that honeysuckled arbour, lulled by the murmuring