I hardly think they knew what they were making this onslaught on a comrade for, but they would have vaguely told you, if they could, that it was not what Etonians would call “good form” to appear at Wenlock on the 29th of May without a “badge of green.”

I stood and watched the chase. My little Roundhead was not caught. He dodged his pursuers adroitly, and in the midst of the hunt the school-bell sounded, so for a moment an armistice was declared.

Before I went in I visited my beds of anemone and ranunculi. What is there of such enchanting brilliancy as the exquisite scarlet anemone, the well-known wind flower of the Pyrenees, as I have heard it called, with its dazzling scarlet blossoms? But my few clumps were over. This lovely variety I have never known “a free grower,” as gardeners call it, in the North, but in Sussex and Hampshire it is said to do well. The roots that I had out then were the exquisite double sorts, and some of the large flowering single varieties. Amongst my most beautiful named sorts I saw by the labels were—Rose de Nice, a delicate satiny rose, Snowball, and Rose Mignon, which last is of a splendid deep shade of pink. There were also Chapeau de Cardinal, Fire King, and la Dame Blanche. How lovely they all were, and how vividly they brought back to me the florists’ shops at Nice, Cannes, and Mentone. How well I remembered the big bunches in all colours in their picturesque green jars of native pottery. But more beautiful still was the recollection of the sheets of anemones as I saw them in Sir Thomas Hanbury’s beautiful garden of La Mortola. They were principally single, and raised from seed by his gardener, I was told. What a glory of colour they made with the cypress trees, ilexes and orange groves as a background, mingling with daffodils and cyclamen, whilst the air was laden with the scent of orange and lemon-blossom.

I recalled the glory of these lovely visions. Even here in England a few patches seemed to add greatly to the beauty and joy of a garden. Then I stopped and picked a few sprays to copy in my curtain. Whilst thus engaged, I was conscious that some one was approaching me. I looked up, and saw my little girl’s governess, Miss Weldon. By her troubled face I knew that she had unpleasant news to communicate; in fact, I was sure the unpleasant rock of Worry was ahead.

BESS NAUGHTY

I listened, and Bess’s delinquencies were poured forth into my unwilling ears. My little maid, it appeared, had bitten the nursery maid, slapped her nurse, and had ended in a fit of rage by throwing her lesson-books in her governess’ face. She had flatly refused to do any lessons to-day. In fact, I was told, she had declined “to study” ever since the excitement of the recitals for the May dance; and Miss Weldon declared that she did not approve of public performances, and pursed up her lips severely.

I did not wait to hear any more for, to quote Burbidge, “the less of a disagreeable you mind, the better for your supper,” but I went straight into the house. I went up the old newel stairs and found Bess on the floor of the nursery. The whole room resounded with her angry cries. “Horrid slug, stupid snail,” and other words of opprobrium I heard in quick reiteration. She kicked, screamed, and vowed she hated everybody and everything, with a furious, scarlet face. Even old Nana did not escape her abuse. There was nothing to be done but to put Bess to bed, and tell her that there she must remain till I could forgive her, and let her get up again.

“I hate you, mother!” she cried in a shower of tears. “When I’m rich I’ll buy a new mother.” And as I closed the door an angry little voice called out, “I’d sell you all for sixpence; you’re all horrid, horrid!”

I tried to seek peace with my crewels and my needle, and bethought myself of the bunch of anemones which in haste I had thrown upon a table in the chapel hall. But peace that day might not be mine. War, black war, seemed to have set in in all parts of my demesne. Célestine bounced in like a whirlwind of discord and fury.

VOICES OF DISCORD