"If not," said Chris, "why was it always called MARY'S MEADOW?" LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN. LETTER I. "All is fine that is fit."_--Old Proverb._ DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, When, with the touching confidence of youth, that your elders have made-up as well as grown-up minds on all subjects, you asked my opinion on _Ribbon-gardening_, the above proverb came into my head, to the relief of its natural tendency to see an inconvenient number of sides to every question. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced it is a comfortably compact confession of my faith on all matters decorative, and thence on the decoration of gardens. I take some credit to myself for having the courage of my moderation, since you obviously expect a more sweeping reply. The bedding-out system is in bad odour just now; and you ask, "Wasn't it hideous?" and "Wasn't it hateful?" and "Will it ever come into fashion again, to the re-extermination of the dear old-fashioned flowers which we are now slowly, and with pains, recalling from banishment?" To discover one's own deliberate opinion upon a subject is not always easy--prophetic opinions one must refuse to offer. But I feel no doubt whatever that the good lady who shall coddle this little garden at some distant date after me will be quite as fond of her borders as I am of mine; and I suspect that these will be about as like each other as our respective best bonnets. The annals of Fashion must always be full of funny stories. I know two of the best amateur gardeners of the day; they are father and son. The father, living _and gardening_ still (he sent me a specimen lily lately by parcel post, and is beholden to no one for help, either with packing or addressing, in his constant use of this new convenience), is making good way between ninety and a hundred years of age. What we call old-fashioned flowers were the pets of his youth. About the time when ribbon-bordering "came in," he changed his residence, and, in the garden where he had cultivated countless kinds of perennials, his son reigned in his stead. The horticultural taste proved hereditary, but in the younger man it took the impress of the fashion of his day. Away went the "herbaceous stuff" on to rubbish heaps, and the borders were soon gay with geraniums, and kaleidoscopic with calceolarias. But "the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges," and, perhaps, a real love for flowers could never, in the nature of things, have been finally satisfied by the dozen or by the score; so it came to pass that the garden is once more herbaceous, and far-famed as such. The father--a _perennial_ gardener in more senses than one, long may he flourish!--has told me, chuckling, of many a penitential pilgrimage to the rubbish heaps, if haply fragments could be found of the herbaceous treasures which had been so rashly cast away.