He begged me to remain on the sofa, to rest, and discontinue all exercise for the present; and before going wrote out the prescription for another lotion. When he had left, I weakly suggested I would use both, and hoped for the best. But this "trimming" course did not pacify Nana, who declared "he might say what he liked, but Dr. Browne had no call to change her lotion." After luncheon I felt better, and was carried out on a sofa to the lawn on the east side of the house, some favourite books were placed near me, and the letters I had received that morning. Burbidge was by that time very penitent and full of compunction, now that he was no longer terrified, and was sure that my leg was not broken. He brought me a sprig of lavender, "to have summat nice to sniff," and assured me "that them birds of mine in the aviary should be looked after proper;" and added, by way of gloomy consolation, "I wouldn't let 'em nohow suffer, not even if you'd broken both legs." When Burbidge had left me, I took up my letters sadly, and felt grieved that I must forego that week the pleasure of calling on friends and of visiting their lovely gardens, decked in the full glory of summer; and that I could not see, as I had intended to do, the stately garden of Cundover, the glowing borders of Burwarton, or the splendour of the Crimson Rambler at Benthall. All these beautiful things, as far as I was concerned, must remain unseen, and flower their sweetness away in the desert air. Not even my own garden might I visit, for my orders were to lie down and not to put foot to the ground for some days; so I said sadly to myself I must only _think_ of gardens. I remained therefore quite quiet, for the children had both gone off to tea at the Red House, and Mouse, and I were left alone, to enjoy each other's society. I lay back amongst the cushions, and thought of all the beautiful gardens that I had ever seen. [Sidenote: THE GARDEN OF MY CHILDHOOD] My mind flew back to the old Hampshire garden, where I had played as a child, with its glowing anemones in May, its auriculas, and its golden patches of alyssum, which we called as children, "golden tuft." Its great hedges of lavender, its masses of fruit trees, and its big beds of hautbois strawberries all returned to me. How well I remembered the quinces, medlars, and mulberries, and a hundred other delights. I recollected also, the groves of filberts and great coverts of gooseberries and raspberries, where the old gardener used to allow us to "forage," as he termed it, for ten minutes at a time, and never more, by his great silver watch, presented to him years ago "by the earl," in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Then how beautiful the walls were in summer and autumn, laden with apricots, peaches, delicious black figs, and later on, with beautiful pears of brilliant colours and gigantic proportions.