It has set her mind to work more and more, however, upon the desirability of permanence in the garden.
In the borders of the terraces round the house she has decided to put a foot-deep edging of Mrs. Simkins pinks. These are adorable in their time of bloom, and the grey-green foliage is tidy, and a pretty bit of colour all the year round.
This year the lobelia, scantily planted, and the climbing geraniums, pathetically subdivided, will take considerable time before forming the show of flower and foliage without which the Villino garden is a failure. But it is a very good thing for individuals as well as nations to be forced to stop and examine their manner of life. Hideous as the struggle is--dead loss of life and happiness and money--good comes out of the evil at many points. Not the least beneficial lesson is that which teaches us now what an extraordinary amount of money and energy one has frittered away by easy-going ways, the amount of items one can put down in a household without being the worse--rather, indeed, the better! Even in a little household, what waste, what excess, what follies of mere show! And if this seems a flat contradiction to the remark upon economy passed a little while ago, let it be noted that conscience and inclination are for ever waging war, and that conscience, as is proper, must have the last word. Moreover, once the domination of conscience is established, the results are, in nine cases out of ten, surprisingly bearable. Frugality combines very well with refinement, and simplicity with dignity. One can be as happy with a three-course lunch and a three-course supper-dinner as one was with an endless array of dishes--those dishes which took so much time and material to prepare, and were so often barely touched! The contents disappeared--thrown away, perhaps, or, what was certainly the case in our household, disposed of as _hors d’œuvres_ between the dining-room and the pantry.
“Why does your butler always come in chewing?” asked an observant relative.
Juvenal, indeed, despite a certain foreign disregard for his meal-times, made such a practice of snatching morsels in transit that the sixteen-year old footman--chief of the many grievances which determined our separation--who outstayed him, has had to be severely reprimanded for making a clean sweep of the dishes that caught his young fancy, with a special partiality for roast chicken.