SOW thick, and you'll have to thin; but sow peas as thick as you please. TREE-LEAVES in the garden, and tea-leaves in the parlour, are good for mulching. "USEFUL if ugly," as the toad said to the lily when he ate the grubs. VERY little will keep Jack Frost out--_before he gets in_. WATER your rose with a slop-pail when it's in bud, and you'll be asked the name of it when it's in flower. XERANTHEMUM, Rhodanthe, Helichrysum, white yellow, purple, and red. Grow us, cut us, tie us, and hang us with drooping head. Good Christians all, find a nook for us, for we bloom for the Church and the Dead. YOU may find more heart's-ease in your garden than grows in the pansy-bed. ZINNIA elegans flore-pleno is a showy annual, and there's a coloured picture in the catalogue; but--like many other portraits--it's a favourable likeness. SUNFLOWERS AND A RUSHLIGHT. _Sunflowers and a Rushlight originally appeared in "Aunt Judy's Magazine," November 1882. It is now re-published for the first time._ CHAPTER I. "A MAN NAMED SOLOMON"--JAEL AND THE CHINA POODLE--JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY--NAIL-SPOTS--FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS--A FAMILY DOCTOR--THE BOOKS IN THE ATTIC--A PUZZLING TALE--"A JOURNEY TO GO." Doctor Brown is our doctor. He lives in our village, at the top of the hill. When we were quite little, and had scarlet-fever, and measles, and those things, Dr. Brown used to be very kind to us, and dress his first finger up in his pocket-handkerchief with a knot for the turban, and rings on his thumb and middle finger, and do--"At the top of a hill lived a man named Solomon," in a hollow voice, which frightened me rather. And then he used to say--"Wise man, Solomon! He lived at the top of a hill," and laugh till his face got redder than usual, and his eyes filled with laughter-tears, and twinkled in the nice way they do, and I was not frightened any more. Dr. Brown left off being our doctor once. That was when he and Grandmamma quarrelled. But they made it up again. It was when I was so unhappy--I tried to help it, but I really could not--about my poor dear white china poodle (Jael broke him when she was dusting, and then she swept up his tail, though I have so begged her to keep the bits when she cleans our room, and breaks things; and now he never never can be mended, all the days of my life):--it was when I was crying about him, and Grandmamma told Dr. Brown how silly I was, to make me feel ashamed, that he said--"There are some tempers which, if they haven't enough people to love, will love things." Margery says he did not say _tempers_ but _temperaments_. I know it began with temper, because it reminded me of Jael, who said "them tears is all temper, Miss Grace," which was very hard, because she knew--she knew quite well--it was about my poodle; and though accidents will happen, she need not have swept up his tail.