[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 the Spring the School might be taking holiday, and Harry might be striding off on a week or 10 days’ country “breathe,”—­and perhaps you would come to me?  Or if he were inclined for fresh fields and pastures new, that you would come together, and he might make his head-quarters here, and go over to Glastonbury, etc., etc., etc., whilst we took matters more quietly at home?

I feel it is a long way to come, but it would be so very pleasant to me to welcome you under my own roof!

If you cannot get away in Spring, I must persuade you when London gets hotter and less pleasant!

You must miss your country home—­and yet I envy you a few things!  London has cords of charm to attract in many ways!  I wish I could fly over, and see the Sir Joshuas and one or two things.