I should spend a very pleasant twenty minutes in. a neighbour's--a near neighbour's--reproduction of the grotto at Pope's Villa at Twickenham, not because I should be wanting in a legitimate abhorrence of the thing, but because I should be able to repeople it with several very pleasant people--say, Arbuthnot, Garth, and Mr. Henry Labouchere. But heaven forbid that I should spend years of my life in the construction of a second Pope's grotto as one of the features of my all-too-constricted garden space. One could easily write a book on “Illustrating Gardens,” meaning not the art of reproducing illustrations of gardens, but the art of constructing gardens that would illustrate the lives of certain interesting people at certain interesting periods. The educational value of gardens formed with such an intent would be great, I am sure. I had occasion some time ago to act the part of their governess to my little girls, and to Dorothy's undisguised amazement I took the class into the garden, and not knowing how to begin--whether with an inquiry into the economic value of a thorough grounding in Conic Sections, or a consideration of the circumstances attending the death of Mary Queen of Scots--I have long believed that a modern coroner's jury would have found that the cause of death was blood poisoning, as there is no evidence that the fatal axe was aseptic, not having been boiled before using--I begged the girls to walk round with me. “This is something quite new,” said Rosamund--“lessons in a garden.” “Is it?” I asked. “Did Miss Pinkerton ever tell you about a man named Plato?” It was generally admitted that if she had ever done so they would have remembered the name. I saw at once that this was a chance that might not occur again for me to recover my position. The respect that I have for Miss Pinkerton is almost equal to that I have for Lemprière or Dr. Wilkam Smith. I unfolded like a philaetery the stores of my knowledge on the subject of the garden of Academus, where Plato and his pupils were wont to meet and discover-- “How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed as some fools affirm, But musical as is Apollo's lute,” and the children learned for the first time the origin of the name Academy. They were struck powerfully with the idea, which they thought an excellent one, of the open-air class. This was an honest attempt on my part to illustrate something through the medium of the garden; but Miss Pinkerton's methods differed from those of Plato: the blackboard was, in her opinion, the only medium of illustration for a properly organised class.