lemon verbena. 
  Sweet peas of five colours with a fringe of maiden-hair ferns,
      the deepest colour in a central jar, with other smaller
      bowls at corners, and small ferns laid around mirror and
      on cloth between. 
  Japan lilies, single flowers, in parterre dishes with ivy leaves, and
      sprays in central vase. 
  Balsams arranged in effect of set borders. 
  Asters in separate colours. 
  Spotted-leaved pipsissewa of the woods with fern border, in bark-covered
      dish. 
  Red and gold bell meadow lilies, in large jar, with field grasses. 
  Gladioli—­the flowers separated from the stalks and arranged
      with various leaves for parterre effect, or stalks laid upon the
      cloth with evergreen ferns to separate the places at a
      formal meal. 
  Sweet sultan, in separate colours, in rose bowls, with fragrant
      geranium or lemon-verbena foliage. 
  Shirly poppies with grasses or green rye, in four slender vases
      about a larger centrepiece. 
  Margaret or picotee carnations with mignonette, arranged loosely
      in a cut-glass vase or bowl. 
  Green rye, wheat, or oats with the blue garden cornflower—­or
      wild blue chickory. 
  Wild asters with heavy tasselled marsh-grasses. 
  Goldenrods with purple iron weed and vines of wild white
      clematis, arranged about a flat dish of peaches and pears. 
  All through autumn place your central mirror on a mat made by
      laying freshly gathered coloured leaves upon the cloth. 
  Wallflowers and late pansies. 
  White Japanese anemonies and ferns. 
  Grass of Parnassus, ladies tresses, and marsh shield ferns. 
  Garden chrysanthemums, in blue-and-white jars and bowls, on a
      large mat of brown magnolia leaves. 
  Sprays of yellow witch-hazel flowers and leaves of red oak. 
  Sprays of coral winterberry, from which leaves have been
      removed, and white-pine tassels. 
  Club-mosses, small evergreen ferns, and partridge vine with its
      red berries, in a bark-covered dish of earth.

XI

A SEASIDE GARDEN

(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)

Gray Rocks, July 19. Your epistle upon the evils of an excess of flowers in the house found us here with the Cortrights and Bradfords, and I read it with Lavinia and Sylvia on either side, as the theme had many notes in it familiar to us all!  There are certainly times and seasons when the impulse is overpowering to lay hold of every flower that comes in the way and gather it to one’s self, to cram every possible nook and corner with this portable form of beauty and fairly indulge in a flower orgie.  Then sets in a reaction that shows, as in so many things, the middle path is the best for every day.  Also there are many enthusiastic gardeners, both among those who grow their own flowers and those who cause them to be grown, who spare neither pains nor money until the flowers are gathered; then their grip relaxes, and the house arrangement of the fruit of their labour is left to chance.