Gardens. I was first made acquainted with the
intention at about the end of June, through
the medium of my mare, who is of a nervous
temperament, and who shied straight across
the road on catching a glimpse of a very
large and very pink posting-bill attached to
the paling of the Society's gardens. I know
the mare objected to the bill; I think she
objected to the announcement which the bill
conveyed. A fête spoils her day; she hates
the crowds of carriages through which she has
to pass, the bursts of drums and cymbals which
come across her at intervals, the lines of carriages,
the mounted police, and the fifteen hundred
red-waistcoated cadgers who rush forward
simultaneously and want to hold her head.

The horrible announcement, repeated in the
Times of the next morning, was read by my
sister Alice, aged twenty-one, who thereupon
handed the paper to my sister Edith, aged
nineteen, placing her thumb on the obnoxious
advertisement, and commencing to work the
eyebrow-telegraph. I, pretending to be
absorbed in devilled kidney, was nevertheless
conscious of being jerked at by both girls,
and, stealthily looking up under my eyebrows,
perceived Alice's mouth shape the words,
"Ask him!" Want of sufficient moral courage
on the part of Edith permitted me to finish
my breakfast, to mount the mare, and to go
forth with a sense of gathering storm. No
mention of subject at dinner. Dance in the
evening at Lady Pocklington's, Miniver
Gardens. My sisters dancing perpetually with
Charles Bury and his cousin Sir Something
Hardwick. I gloomy, with a sense of impending
misery. " Oh, Fred, Sir Something says, we
must go to the next horticultural fête; it will
be a darling; it will be so nice; everybody will
be there, &c. &c. You know we have no
chaperon but you, and you will take us, won't
you?" In the same strain Edith, to the same
effect Charles Bury and Sir Something. I, savage,
though still with a feeling of relief that the storm
has burst. " No! I won't! Can't! Business,
work, previous engagement, all and everything;
finally, I won't!" Girls sulky and disgusted,
Bury and Sir Something evidently dying to
kick me, and I triumphant, but remorseful and
wretched. So, home from Lady Pocklington's.

For the next fortnight, civil war, perpetual
skirmishes, alarms of trumpets, ambushes, and
one or two pitched battles. At length, a flag
of truce, in the shape, of lace-edged
pocket-handkerchief carried by Edith. Parley. "Was
I still obstinate?" " That might be her word;
I was still firm!" "I would not go to the
gar——?" " Certainly not!" " Then would I
mind their going with Uncle and Aunt Naylor,
then from the provinces, and staying at an
Albemarle-street hotel?" I am mortal. When my
own convenience is not molested I can be
generous. Let Uncle and Aunt Naylor be sacrificed.
Ruat cœlum. I called on the Naylors, they
were delighted, they "had heard so much of the
place." So had I. I knew exactly what would
happen, where the bands would be placed, what
tunes they would play, how the members of one
would pull their brass instruments to pieces and
blow through fragments of them and hold them
up to dry, while the other band was playing. I
knew what people would be there, and the
moony conversation they would have, and the
heat they would get into, and the desire that
would possess them to lie down under the
fountains and cascades. I knew how Alice and Bury
and Edith and Sir Something would get
separated from the Naylors, and how, after the old
people had transformed themselves into purple
water-carts in their stupendous endeavours to
find them, the delinquents would turn up late in
the evening perfectly cool, and say, "Why,
where have you hidden yourselves? We have
been looking for you for hours!" I knew all
this, but I did not tell Uncle Naylor. He was
going smiling to the sacrifice, and it was no
business of mine to suggest that he had better
prepare himself by feeling the edge of the knife.
I had made up my mind what to do that day;
I would call on Tom Cooper, and he should
bring out that great raking chesnut of his,
and we would go for a ride through Willesden-
lane, across to the left over Acton and Ealing,
and so round home.

The day came, cloudy but with every promise
of sun and heat, promise soon fulfilled. I
thought I would take a holiday from business,
make a few calls, and then go and pick up
Tom Cooper. I made my calls on people who
were all gone to South Kensington, and having
put up the mare, strode off, not best pleased,
to Tom Cooper's office in Gray's Inn, and at
once proposed the contemplated ride. Tom is
a man of few words; he simply shook his head,
and said, "No go, old fellow! I'm off to the
flower-show!"

I caught up my hat, and said, "What, are
you, too, going to this tomfoolery, Tom? I
thought there was one sensible man left in
London. Go to your Italian gardens, and your
Life Guards' band, your plashing fountains, and
your——"

"What the deuce is the man talking of?"
interrupted Tom. "I'm going to no Italian
gardens or plashing fountains. I'm going up
to a local affair. My people live in Russell-
square and there's an exhibition of the plants
belonging to the working classes of our parish,
held in the garden of the square. It's a good
thing! You had better come and see it!"

I remembered that I had read something
about it in the Times, and I agreed to go and
see it.

We drove through the good old Mesopotamian
district, past Great Dowdy-street, Guiltless-
street, Great Abnormal-street, and, passing
Decorum-street, reached Russell-square, against
the railings of which we found countless children
clinging like bats. At a side-wicket was
stationed the most harmless of policemen, who
touched his hat with great deference to Tom
Cooper, and admitted us into the glories of the
square garden. I should like to take any
reader of this periodical, blindfold him, turn