"I would like to tell you how my husband and I amuse ourselves, and contrive to have all we want. You will see that we illustrate the old saying, that 'where there is a _will_, there is a _way_,' and that some people can do things as well as others. We both love flowers extremely, but we neither own nor control a foot of ground; still, we have this summer cultivated and enjoyed the perpetual bloom of more than a hundred varieties. You will wonder how this is done when you know that we are at board, and our entire apartments consist of a parlor and dormitory--both upon the second floor. Very fortunately our windows open upon a roof which shelters a lower piazza, and this roof we make our balcony. Last May we placed here eight very large pots of rich earth, which we filled with such seeds and plants as suited our fancy. Now, while I sit writing, my windows are shaded with the scarlet runner, morning glory, Madeira and cypress vines, so that I need no other curtains. Then, on a level with my eye, is one mass of pink and green--brilliant verbenas, petimas, roses and oleanders seem really to _glow_ in the morning light. Flowers in the city are more than beautiful, for the language they speak is so different from everything about them. Their lives are so lovely, returning to the culturer such wealth of beauty--and then their _odors_ seem to me instead of voices. Often, when I am reading, and forget for a time my sweet companions, the fragrance of a heliotrope or a jessamine greets me, causing a sense of delight, as if a beautiful voice had whispered to me, or some sweet spirit kissed me. With this _presence_ of beauty and purity around me, I cannot feel loneliness or discontent. "Our flowers are so near to us we have become really _intimate_ with them. We know all their habits, and every insect that harms them. I love to see the tender tendril of a vine stretch for the string that is fastened at a little distance for its support, and then wind about it so gladly. Every morning it is a new excitement to see long festoons of our green curtains, variegated with trumpet-shaped morning-glories, looking towards the sun, and mingled with them the scarlet star of the cypress vine. When my husband comes home wearied and disgusted with Wall-street, it refreshes his body and soul to look into our "_hanging garden_," and note new beauties the day has developed. I trust the time and affection we thus spend are not wasted, for I believe the sentiment of Coleridge's lines-- 'He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.'