"For the present, until I have educated you up to the pergola."
"Oh! thank you."
Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches, fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and clematis, and—cut down the holly hedge.
His Reverence's education will take a little time, I expect. In the meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas.
But how the Visitor would despise my compromising soul!
It was judicious of me to give his Reverence the direction of the new border. I heard nothing of expense, and, once started, he went ahead in thorough fashion.
The gravel was carted away, and some feet of stony earth. Then we came to a layer of good though light soil. The backs of shrubberies, a small wood at the bottom of a field, a bank in the kitchen garden were all taxed for their share of the best soil we could get, and this, finally mixed in with some old turf and manure, made a border that looked promising. There was no need to begin with a layer of broken china and sardine tins, for the drainage in my soil was more than sufficient, and this disappointed Jim, who said he was ready with a fine collection, had that substratum been necessary.
And then, my new border ready, I launched out.
It was to be partly herbaceous, partly for bulbs and annuals.
The promised plants, which began to come in, supplied me with some delphiniums and small perennial sunflowers. I moved there some of my young plants of oriental poppies, planting them near together until they should have expanded. Then I selected my lilies. The auratum and other delightful varieties I had to leave out, but the white Madonna lily would thrive, and croceum, an orange-coloured bloom, and the soft apricot shade of an elegans promised to be hardy. These were placed in front of the delphiniums and room left for big sunflowers in the spring. Half forward the Canterbury bells, sweet-Williams and tall campanulas were placed in clumps, and in front of them, well buried, were groups of the Spanish and English irises, meant, as they succeed each other, to keep bright patches of yellow, purple and white flowering there for some time. They are not very dear—five shillings a hundred—and I now began to reckon on a new five pounds. Montbresias, too, I launched into, and left spaces for groups of gladiolas to join them in the spring. Then for early flowering I introduced my thriving young wallflowers, always in groups, not rows, and some of the dear narcissi and gorgeous tulips would, I thought, be admired before other things had a chance. To end up with, and be gay to the verge of gaudy, I had forget-me-nots and pink silene.