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in respect to human plants-that it is among the "discards," those rated as probably defective, and, in the garden, those weaker plants that are pulled out when thinning is done to give room to their lustier brothers-that it is among these that the genius, the new and rare sort will be found, and that for the plants as well as for the human youngsters these are always worth tending in a secluded garden corner, to see what they will come to.

Another of the delights of a garden is that it is as changeful as life itself and as capable of experiment. In other arts or crafts what's done is done. One may do better in the future, but for the present work-there it is, and so it must stand. On the other hand, the peculiar charm of the garden is that always one may change it, better it, shift this plant where it will be happier, separate two whose colors quarrel, plan some new effect here or there. To many a gardener there is nothing more exhilarating than making changes, planning a new pool, a new trellis, or steps; there is pure joy in thinking what one will do next year. Always there is the "next year." In this lies the garden's long fascination.

In this America of ours we have large estates a-plenty and some elaborate gardens, but of lovely little gardens we have sore need. And sore need we have also for keeping what loveliness we have inviolate. In every suburb the contractor is

busy wiping out the wild beauty with a baleful industry and thoroughness which makes his progress like that of the army worm or the seventeen-year locust; not a tree or a bush is left in his path which might hearten the gardening of some newcomer; burdock and five-hundred-year oak-tree fare alike, and instead springs up his ideal the checker-board of treeless streets lined with close-set houses, their outward form as exactly alike as the clothes of asylum orphans. It may be progress, it may be improvement, and yet improvement, as St. Paul says of science, is often "falsely so called." In a community where charming little gardens were the rule, such activity would at least be modified in the interest of beauty.

Whoever is keenly interested in civic or social betterment can begin in no better way than in making his own garden lovely, for never did any one make a garden without being the better and happier for it; and one of the sweetest effects of a garden is that the art is both contagious and infectious. I doubt if ever any one made a garden without some other being tempted to go and do likewise. Long before the roses have covered his bare fence or even his bulbs begun to poke their noses above the chilly earth, some neighbor, who has been watching, is sure to go a-gardening also.

"I go a-fishing," said St. Peter, and the inevitable response is that of Thomas and Nathaniel: "We also go with thee!"

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. M. BERGER

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OMEHOW, it seems a good deal like giving away a secret to tell you about Bonmets at all. It does a brisk little business already, so does not need the advertising; and it cares not at all for the seeker after Bohemia. Least of all do we want to drop in next Thursday night and find our pet places taken. Still, if you are not our kind of person you will forget all about it. If you are our kind, then you may go and search in the upper Forties, a little off Lexington. There will be no carriage-caller, no row of staring motor-lamps to guide you. But just after you pass the second entrance, on the north side, with its long iron-railed steps, look sharp, and you will make out

the little sign "BONMETS." Then go down two short steps from the sidewalk and peep over the sash curtains in the little door; or, if it is not storming, pop in at once between its open hands.

On your right will be a tall desk, madame's own, from which a single dark red rose will bow you a welcome, even if the warm smile and cheerful "Bonsoir" of madame are absent elsewhere in her little kingdom. Count the tables-eight of them in all. Six take comfortable care of four guests each, while one at each side, at the back of the room,-table amourette,-is reserved for those who come here, not to dine, but to dream away an hour. Candles-real ones-with crimson shades shed the soft glow upon the walls that changes taking food into dining. And the deep blue edge on all the china completes the color plan that gives the spirit of Bonmets.

But before you have noticed half these

things you will have fallen into the hands of François. For it is he who will at once come to meet you, with his smile that begins with a tiny wrinkle at the corners of his mouth and then, if he knows you for one of his own, spreads until it covers his whole beaming face. More plainly than any words that smile says: "Ah, yes, it is a friend who enters; it is not one of those others. I make him welcome."

Watch for that smile and, if you win it, then know that you are free of Bonmets, and of all that is within those white walls. When François has led you to a table; when he has put you in your chair with his never to be excelled combination of servitor and confidential friend; when, menu in hand, he bends attentively beside you; then it is for you to say: "I am hungry (or not hungry); what you will, François." For it is thus we put ourselves wholly into his hands, knowing that when we reverently approach our tiny liqueurs it will be with that satisfied sensation that this old world is a beautiful one, New York the best place in it, and ourselves the leading citizens. So I say to youleave it all to François.

He will disappear behind a swinging green door, and in an instant his head will peep out at you again, with perhaps another small gray head beside his. If this last happens then you are blessed indeed, for that means that François and Père Bonmets, who rules supreme in the kitchen, have really gone to the length of consulting together upon the vitally important matter of the tempting of your palate.

But if I tell you more of Bonmets then we who like to call it ours will find you too thick about its sweets for our own comfort. Go, then, and search for it. Besides, it was of François' journey that I began to talk. That came about in this wise. Some we saw ourselves, some we had from the lips of dear, wise old madame.

For more than a long year the beloved France had been at war. Always we had discussed the day's reports with madame, with François, often with both at once. Together we had felt encouraged at every advance, had mourned over every setback; these last recognized to be but temporary, for we are all ardently of the cause

of Bonmets. Two we had seen leave the little place for France and glory. These were the two younger men who had attended those not favored by Françoismadame's own boy, Jean, and a friend. In their places had come young girls. Père Bonmets was too old to go. Indeed, he could on some nights, when none but ourselves were there, be drawn from his kitchen to tell his tales of a Paris beleaguered years ago. François himself had applied, but, to his deep chagrin, had been rejected. "Ah, yes-it was the lungs, monsieur-que voulez-vous. She would not have me, mon pays. It is my hard luck. Monsieur le médecin he say I should go to your Arizona-but I-I have not the money for your so expensive railway. I remain here with monsieur et madame."

We had long thought François failing, had known him growing perceptibly thinner; but what could we, coming in for our seventy-cent dinner, do more for him than sympathize? So it was with the greater joy that we watched the coming of the fairy godparents.

It was on a Thursday, our regular "party night," that they came. Four of "those others" burst into Bonmets from somewhere outside our part of the city, led by what we may call chance, but what seems in truth the angel of François. Three men and a girl, full of cheer and good spirits and, from their exclamations of delight, obviously making their first visit among us. In that quiet street the soft purr of a stopped motor had told us, even before we saw the newcomers, that they were of those whose path is made easy by wealth.

François met them just inside the door, quickly appraised them, and, because I think he saw what he sought in the face of the girl, smiled and gave them the table next to ours. Our ears and eyes were open, for, as you know already, we are jealous of Bonmets and of its impression upon the stranger.

"What a gem of a little place, Aleck! How did you ever find it?"

This from the girl to the grave-eyed young man at her left-a doctor, for a thousand dollars.

"Chap I operated on told me of it. About the time he began to take an inter

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when it was so rare a pleasure to look at her?

Her high-held head was properly carried upon honest shoulders. The longlashed blue eyes looked from beneath nicely arched brows directly into the face of the world, with sympathy, understanding, and liking, but not without a touch of fire. Only birth and breeding could have moulded the lines and curves of that fair face to meet and part without a false note, without a disappointment, even in the nose that spoke so plainly of a long, clean strain. And we were wholly satisfied when a small, modelled hand came up to push back an inquisitive chestnut lock, peeping down from beneath a big black hat, with which a blue gull was about to sail away. It must have felt obliged to

"It is a friend who enters.

come down, that lock, to caress a dainty ear, set out just enough to look gener

ous.

Sitting there among the three men, making play with her flashing white smile, her elusive, chuckling little laugh, she easily met these widely differing spirits, each upon his own ground. And she made them wholly hers. Each seemed visibly to glow as for a second she brought him to the front only to set him back upon his shelf at once and take down another of her puppets. Yes, after all, it must have been the girl.

While we were making our several eye sketches of her the quick, efficient hands of François had led the four through the hors d'œuvres and up to one of the père's wonderful clear soups. Indeed, it was as

I make him welcome."-Page 372.

he came in with their entrée that he coughed his first hastily stifled cough.

We saw "Aleck" look up sharply, then turn back to his dinner. A few moments later, however, when the discreet waiter was not so successful, and when he was seized with a real paroxysm, the man we had taken for a doctor proved it by turning squarely in his chair and looking at François with a little frown between his eyes.

"How can that be allowed in a place like this?" we heard him mutter. With a word of apology he sprang from his chair and strode up to madame, sitting at her desk. There he stood for some time talking, after waving away François, who had run forward, fearful lest some fault of his had been made the subject of complaint.

We could see madame pouring into the man's ear a voluble French explanation. And that this was having its effect we could not doubt, for the doctor's expression changed from the most positive annoyance to the livest sympathy and interest. When presently he returned to the

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