This regard of and aversion to the Poppy lingered among elderly folks till our own day; and I well recall the horror of a visitor of antique years in our mother's garden during our childhood, when we were found cheerfully eating Poppy seeds. She viewed us with openly expressed apprehension that we would fall into a stupor; and quite terrified us and our relatives, in spite of our assertions that we "always ate them," which indeed we always did and do to this day; and very pleasant of taste they are, and of absolutely no effect, and not at all of evil smell to our present fancy, either in blossom or seed, though distinctly medicinal in odor. Returned missionaries were frequent and honored visitors in our town and our house in those days; and one of these good men reassured us and reinstated in favor our uncanny feast by telling us that in the East, Poppy seeds were eaten everywhere, and were frequently baked with wheaten flour into cakes. A dislike of the scent of Field Poppies is often found among English folk. The author of _A World in a Garden_ speaks in disgust of "the pungent and sickly odor of the flaring Poppies--they positively nauseate me"; but then he disliked their color too. There is something very fine about a Poppy, in the extraordinary combination of boldness of color and great size with its slender delicacy of stem, the grace of the set of the beautiful buds, the fine turn of the flower as it opens, and the wonderful airiness of poise of so heavy a flower. The silkiness of tissue of the petals, and their semi-transparency in some colors, and the delicate fringes of some varieties, are great charms. "Each crumpled crepe-like leaf is soft as silk; Long, long ago the children saw them there, Scarlet and rose, with fringes white as milk, And called them 'shawls for fairies' dainty wear'; They were not finer, those laid safe away In that low attic, neath the brown, warm eaves." And when the flowers have shed, oh, so lightly! their silken petals, there is still another beauty, a seed vessel of such classic shape that it wears a crown. I have always rejoiced in the tributes paid to the Poppy by Ruskin and Mrs. Thaxter. She deemed them the most satisfactory flower among the annuals "for wondrous variety, certain picturesque qualities, for color and form, and a subtle air of mystery."