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for the over-care he obliges them to take of their own lives; and make no secret of wanting his removal, by trying to torment him into resignation. Not a day passes without squabbles about smoking, for Mr. D. is apt to sniff tobacco, and insists on searching pockets for pipes, which the laborers one and all decline; and besides scuffles, there have been several pay-offs on the spot. The consequence is ill-will and bad blood to their superior, and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the family feelings and fears. I have twice suffered all the disagreeables of escaping from nothing at all in my night-dress, exposed to rheumatism, and the natives of a low neighborhood; indeed only last Sunday the firebell was rung by nobody, and no wind at all to speak of. Another party at enmity is Doctor Worral and all his establishment; because Mr. D. felt it his public duty to have the Doctor up before a Justice for allowing his Young Gentlemen to send up fire-balloons. We had one day of dreadful excitement on my husband's part, through a wicked little wretch of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the Mill with a bit of looking-glass; and of course we are indebted for the Swing letters we receive to the same juvenile quarters. To make bad worse, Mr. D. takes them all for Gospel, and the extra watchings and patrollings, and precautions, after getting a threatening notice, are enough to wear out all our hearts. As regards the School, I am ready to agree that it is too near the Works; and to tell the truth, I shake in my shoes as much as Mr. D., every fifth of November, at each squib and cracker that goes off. On the same score our own sons are an everlasting misery to us when they are at home; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that account. But if there is one thing above another that boys delight to play with, it is gunpowder; and being at the very fountain-head, Your Lordship may conceive the constant care it is to prevent their getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned with success. Indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged to be guarded against; for, as their father says, "a little brat, just breeched, may strike light enough to blow up a whole neighborhood, through only spinning a peg-top in a paved yard."

Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have not dwelt, as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in the coal-cellar; the paying months' wages

instead of warnings; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes from my husband's false alarms. Sometimes it's a chair falls overhead; or the wind slams the back-door; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or a fall of soot; or a candlesnuff; or a smoky coal; or, as I have known before now, only the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, "in Franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks and a birch, rod as likely to frighten away lightning as an iron one." In the mean time, through the constant frights and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since Captain Gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. In fact he quite sets his face against the male sex; for, if they do not smoke cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels, and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks, and umbrellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard on myself and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gayety; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes.

I humbly trust to Your Lordship's liberality, and goodness of heart, to view the particulars of the above melancholy statement with attentive consideration. As it may occur to inquire how we have suffered so long without complaining, I beg to inform your Lordship, that, being such a time of profound peace, we have lived on from year to year in the hope that no more ammunition would be required; and consequently the place would become a comfortable sinecure. But it appears that Spain and Portugal, and other countries, have gone to war on condition of being supplied with gunpowder;

and accordingly, to our bitter disappointment, the works are as vigorous as ever. Your Lordship will admit the hardship of such a cruel position to a man of Mr. D.'s very peculiar constitution; and I do hope and trust will also regard his interests with a favorable eye, in consideration of his long-standing claims upon the country. What his friends most desire for him is some official situation, - of course with a sufficient income to support his consequence, and a numerous family, but without any business attached to it, or only so much as might help to amuse his mind for one or two hours in the day. Such a removal, considering my husband's unfitness for anything else, could occasion no sort of injury to the public service; particularly as his vacancy would be so easy to fill up. There are hundreds and thousands of land and sea officers on half-pay, who have been used to popping, and banging, and blowing up rockets and bomb-shells, all their lives; and would, therefore not object to the Powder Mills; especially as the salary is handsome, with a rent-free house and garden, coal and candles, and all the other little perquisites that belong to public posts. As regards ourselves, on the contrary, any interest is preferable to the gunpowder interest; and I take upon myself to say, that Mr. D. would be most proud and happy to receive any favor from your Lordship's administration; as well as answering for his pursuing any line of political principles, conservative or unconservative, that might be chalked out. Any such act of patronage would command the eternal gratitude of Mr. D., self, and family; and, repeating a thousand apologies for thus addressing, I beg leave to remain Your Lordship's most humble, obedient, and devoted servant, LUCY EMILY DEXTER.

P. S.- Since writing the above, I am sorry to inform your Lordship, that we have had another little blow, and Mr. D.'s state is indescribable. He is more shaken than ever, and particularly through going all down the stairs in three jumps. He was sitting reading at the time, and, as he thinks, in his spectacles; but as they are not to be found, he is possessed that they have been driven into his head.

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"Each flower of tender stalk whose head, though gay
Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,
Hung drooping, unsustained, them she upstays."

"How does my lady's garden grow?”

MILTON.

OLD BALLAD.

"Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars."

I LOVE a Garden!

RICHARD II.

"And so do I, and I, and I," exclaim in chorus all the he and she Fellows of the Horticultural Society.

"And I," whispers the philosophical Ghost of Lord Bacon. "And I," sings the poetical Spirit of Andrew Marvel. "Et moi aussi," chimes in the Shade of Delille.

"And I," says the Spectre of Sir William Temple, echoed by Pope, and Darwin, and a host of the English Poets, the sonorous voice of Milton resounding above them all.

"And I," murmurs the Apparition of Boccaccio.

"And I, and I," sob two Invisibles, remembering Eden. "And I," shouts Mr. George Robins, thinking of Covent Garden.

"And I," says Mr. Simpson, formerly of Vauxhall. "And I," sing ten thousand female voices, all in unison, as if drilled by IIullah, but really, thinking in concert of the

Gardens of Gul.

$

[What a string I have touched!]

"We all love a Garden!" shout millions of human voices, male, female, and juvenile, bass, tenor, and treble. From the East, the West, the North, and the South, the universal burden swells on the wind, as if declaring in a roll of thunder that we all love a Garden.

But no, -one solitary voice, that of Hamlet's Ghostly Father, exclaims in a sepulchral tone, “I don't! ”

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No matter, we are all but unanimous; and so, Gentle Readers, I will at once introduce to you my Heroine, woman after your own hearts, for she is a Gardiner by name and a Gardener by nature.

CHAPTER II.

AT Number Nine, Paradise Place, so called probably because every house stands in the middle of a little garden, lives Mrs. Gardiner. I will not describe her, for looking through the green rails in front of her premises, or over the dwarf wall at the back, you may see her any day, in an old poke bonnet, expanded into a gypsy-hat, and a pair of man's gloves, tea-green at top, but mouldy-brown in the fingers, raking, digging, hoeing, rolling, trowelling, pruning, nailing, watering, or otherwise employed in her horticultural and floricultural pursuits. Perhaps, as a neighbor, or acquaintance, you have already seen her, or conversed with her, over the wooden or brick-fence, and have learned in answer to your kind inquiries about her health, that she was pretty well, only sadly in want of rain, or quite charming, but almost eaten up by vermin. For Mrs. Gardiner speaks the true "Language of Flowers," not using their buds and blossoms as symbols of her own passions and sentiments, according to the Greek fashion, but lending words to the wants and affections of her plants. Thus, when she says that she is "dreadful dry,” and longs for a good soaking, it refers not to a defect of moisture in her own clay, but to the parched condition of the soil in her parterres or if she wishes for a regular smoking, it is not from any unfeminine partiality to tobacco, but in behalf of her blighted geraniums. In like manner she sometimes confesses herself a little backward, without allusion to any particular

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