"The pleasure is in the preparation," replied she. "When all appears dead and torpid to you idle spectators, all is secretly at work; nature is busy in preparing her treasures under ground, and art has a hand in the process. When the blossoms of summer are delighting you mere amateurs, then it is that we professional people," added she, laughing, "are really idle. The silent operations of the winter now produce themselves--the canvas of nature is covered--the great Artist has laid on his colors--then we petty agents lay down our implements, and enjoy our leisure in contemplating _his_ work." I had never known her so communicative; but my pleased attention, instead of drawing her on, led her to check herself. Ph[oe]be, who had been busily employed in trimming a flaunting yellow Azalia, now turned to me and said: "Why it is only the Christmas-month that our labors are suspended, and then we have so much pleasure that we want no business; such in-door festivities and diversions that that dull month is with us the gayest in the year." So saying, she called Lucilla to assist her in tying up the branch of an orange-tree which the wind had broken. I was going to offer my services when Mrs. Stanley joined us, before I could obtain an answer to my question about these Christmas diversions. A stranger, who had seen me pursuing Mrs. Stanley in her walks, might have supposed not the daughter, but the mother, was the object of my attachment. But with Mrs. Stanley I could always talk of Lucilla, with Lucilla I durst not often talk of herself. The fond mother and I stood looking with delight on the fair gardeners. When I had admired their alacrity in these innocent pursuits, their fondness for retirement, and their cheerful delight in its pleasures, Mrs. Stanley replied: "Yes, Lucilla is half a nun. She likes the rule, but not the vow. Poor thing! her conscience is so tender that she oftener requires encouragement than restraint. While she was making this plantation, she felt herself so absorbed by it that she came to me one day and said that her gardening work so fascinated her that she found whole hours passed unperceived, and she began to be uneasy by observing that all cares and all duties were suspended while she was disposing beds of carnations, or knots of anemones. Even when she tore herself away, and returned to her employments, her flowers still pursued her, and the improvement of her mind gave way to the cultivation of her geraniums.