There are many methods of gardening. I have known people who were not content with anything but actually digging and weeding, grubbing up the curly wet worms and the tough roots, and bending their own backs over bulbs and seedlings. That is the thorough method, and though it is a little like sweeping and scrubbing out yourself the rooms your guests are to occupy,--and I suppose that would be a pleasure to some people,--it is the method that commands the most respect. Compared with it I feel that I cannot ask respect for mine; I must be content with admiration. My gardening is done entirely with scissors, scissors and discretion, both easy to use. With scissors and discretion I walk about my garden, snipping off the flowers that are over. Masuddi comes behind, holding my umbrella, Sropo with a basket picks up the devoted heads. I thus ignore causes and deal directly with results, much the simplest and quickest way when life is complicated by its manifold presentations and the cares of a family. And the results are wonderful,--I can heartily recommend this method of gardening to any one who wants to compass the most charming effect with the least exertion. A plant is only a big bouquet, and what bouquet does not instantly redouble its beauty when you take away the one or two flowers that have withered in it? A faded flower is too sad a comment upon life to be allowed to remain even on its parent stem, besides being detrimental and untidy like a torn petticoat. There should be nothing but joy in the garden, joy and freshness and coquetry, and the subtlest, loveliest suggestion of art; anon by the diligent application of scissors and discretion I leave a flood of these things behind me every day. No doubt it is regrettable that the withered rags in Sropo’s basket represent the joy and coquetry of yesterday; this is the lesson of life, however, and one cannot take account of everything. Also you lay yourself open to the charge of being a mere lady’s-maid to your garden; but worse things than that are said about nearly everybody. Among the pansies I confess I feel rather an executioner with my scissors, though there a rigorous policy most rewards me. Nothing is so slatternly as a pansy bed where some of the family are just coming out into the world, and others are beginning to weary of it and others are going shamelessly to seed. My pansies must all be properly coiffured and fit to appear in society; when they begin to pull shawls over their heads and take despondent views I remove them. Moreover, under this unremitting discipline, they will go on and on, I shall have four months of pansies; it is in every way the right thing to do.