“‘Do I annoy you by staying here?  Would you prefer I went elsewhere?’ says he, and well I moind the words, for Oi thought an offer was on the road, and as ’twas the nearest I’d been to wan, small wonder I got excoited!  Then Miss Marie spoke up, smooth as a knife cutting ice cream,—­’To speak frankly,’ says she, ’you do not exactly annoy me, but I’d much rather you went elsewhere!’ Och, but it broke me heart, the sound of it!”

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LIST OF FLOWER COMBINATIONS FOR THE TABLE FROM BARBARA’S GARDEN BOKE

HEAVILY SCENTED FLOWERS, SUCH AS HYACINTHS, LEMON AND AURATUM LILIES, POLYANTHUS NARCISSUS, MAGNOLIAS, LILACS, AND THE LIKE, SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

  Snowdrops and pussy-willows. 
  Hepaticas and moss. 
  Spice-bush and shad-bush sprays. 
  Trailing arbutus and sweet, white garden violets. 
  Double daffodils and willow sprays. 
  Crocus buds and moss. 
  Blue garden scillas and wild white saxifrage. 
  Black-birch catkins and wind-flowers. 
  Plants of the various wild violets, according to season, arranged
      in an earthen pan with a moss or bark covering. 
  Old-fashioned myrtle, with its glossy leaves, and single narcissus,
      or English primroses. 
  Bleeding-heart and young ferns. 
  English border primroses in small rose bowls. 
  Lilies-of-the-valley, with plenty of their own leaves, and poets’
      narcissus. 
  Tulip-tree flowers and leaves. 
  The wild red-and-gold columbine with young white-birch sprays. 
  Pinxter flower and the New York or wood fern. 
  Jack-in-the-pulpit with its own leaves, in a bark or moss
      covered jar. 
  Pink moccasin-flowers with ferns, in bark-covered jar. 
  Pansies with ivy or laurel leaves, arranged in narrow dishes to
      form a parterre about a central mirror. 
  Iceland poppies with small ferns or grasses. 
  May pinks and forget-me-nots. 
  Blue larkspurs and deutzia (always put white with blue flowers). 
  Peonies with evergreen ferns, in a central jar. 
  Sweet-william, arranged in separate colours for parterre effect
      or in a large blue-and-white bowl, with graceful sprays of
      honeysuckle flowers. 
  Wild roses with plenty of buds and foliage, in blue-and-white
      bowls. 
  Roses in large sprays with branches of the young leaves of copper
      beech—­or masses of Chinese honeysuckle. 
  Roses with short stems arranged with their own or rugosa foliage
      in blue-and-white dishes that have coarse wire netting fitted
      to the top to keep the flowers in place. 
  White field daisies, clover, and flowering grasses, in a large
      bowl or jar. 
  Mountain laurel with its own leaves, in central jar and parterre
      dishes. 
  Nasturtiums, in cut-glass bowl or vase, with the foliage of