[Illustration: Garden House in Garden of Hon. William H. Seward, Auburn, New York.] These little Ladies' Delights have infinite variety of expression; some are laughing and roguish, some sharp and shrewd, some surprised, others worried, all are animated and vivacious, and a few saucy to a degree. They are as companionable as people--nay, more; they are as companionable as children. No wonder children love them; they recognize kindred spirits. I know a child who picked unbidden a choice Rose, and hid it under her apron. But as she passed a bed of Ladies' Delights blowing in the wind, peering, winking, mocking, she suddenly threw the Rose at them, crying out pettishly, "Here! take your old flower!" The Dandelion is to many the golden seal of spring, but it blooms the whole circle of the year in sly garden corners and in the grass. Of it might have been written the lines:-- "It smiles upon the lap of May, To sultry August spreads its charms, Lights pale October on its way, And twines December's arms." I have picked both Ladies' Delights and Dandelions every month in the year. [Illustration: Sun-dial in Garden of Hon. William H. Seward, Auburn, New York.] I suppose the common Crocus would not be deemed a very great garden ornament in midsummer, in its lowly growth; but in its spring blossoming it is--to use another's words--"most gladsome of the early flowers." A bed of Crocuses is certainly a keen pleasure, glowing in the sun, almost as grateful to the human eye as to the honey-gathering bees that come unerringly, from somewhere, to hover over the golden cups. How welcome after winter is the sound of that humming. In the garden's story, there are ever a few pictures which stand out with startling distinctness. When the year is gone you do not recall many days nor many flowers with precision; often a single flower seems of more importance than a whole garden. In the day book of 1900 I have but few pictures; the most vivid was the very first of the season. It could have been no later than April, for one or two Snowdrops still showed white in the grass, when a splendid ribbon of Chionodoxa--Glory of the Snow--opened like blue fire burning from plant to plant, the bluest thing I ever saw in any garden. It was backed with solid masses of equally vivid yellow Alyssum and chalk-white Candy-tuft, both of which had had a good start under glass in a temporary forcing bed. These three solid masses of color surrounded by bare earth and showing little green leafage made my eyes ache, but a picture was burnt in which will never leave my brain. I always have a sense of importance, of actual ownership of a plant, when I can recall its introduction--as I do of the Chionodoxa, about 1871. It is said to come up and bloom in the snow, but I have never seen it in blossom earlier than March, and never then unless the snow has vanished. It has much of the charm of its relative, the Scilla.