Neither Miss Allison nor her niece, would have taken any pleasure in gardens of this kind, which had nothing of a garden but the name. They both delighted in flowers; the aunt because flowers to her were “redolent of youth,” and never failed to awaken tender recollections; Betsey for an opposite reason; having been born and bred in London, a nosegay there had seemed always to bring her a foretaste of those enjoyments for which she was looking forward with eager hope. They had stocked their front garden therefore with the gayest and the sweetest flowers that were cultivated in those days; larkspurs both of the giant and dwarf species, and of all colours; sweet-williams of the richest hues; monks-hood for its stately growth; Betsey called it the dumbledore's delight, and was not aware that the plant in whose helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers that busy and best-natured of all insects appears to revel more than in any other, is the deadly aconite of which she read in poetry: the white lily, and the fleur-de-lis; peonies, which are still the glory of the English garden; stocks and gilly flowers which make the air sweet as the gales of Arabia; wall-flowers, which for a while are little less fragrant, and not less beautiful; pinks and carnations added their spicy odours; roses red and white peeped at the lower casements, and the jessamine climbed to those of the chambers above. You must nurse your own flowers if you would have them flourish, unless you happen to have a gardener who is as fond of them as yourself. Eve was not busier with her's in Paradise, her “pleasant task injoined,” than Betsey Allison and her aunt, from the time that early spring invited them to their cheerful employment, till late and monitory autumn closed it for the year. “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;” and Solomon in all his wisdom never taught more wholesome lessons than these silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind and an “understanding heart.” “There are two books,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other. This was the scripture and theology of the heathens: the natural motion of the sun made them more admire him than its supernatural station did the children of Israel; the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than in the other all his miracles. Surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature.” INTERCHAPTER XIV. CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS. If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the whole world is become a hodge-podge. LYLY.