I had always heard of the brilliant beauty of Scotch gardens, and the moment I saw them I understood why it was. The seasons are so late that all the summer flowers bloom together; May and June of the South merge into July and August in Scotland, and everything is in flower at once. No wonder the gardens look bright; besides, the damp air makes the colours more beautiful and the scent stronger.

It is, I think, very interesting to the gardener, where-ever he goes, to see how the common everyday things flourish more in one place than another. The Highlands seem to be the home of the Gooseberry-such old and hoary bushes, more or less covered by grey Lichens, but laden none the less with little hairy Gooseberries, both red and green, and full of flavour. There, too, the beautiful Tropaeolum speciosum, South American stranger as it is, flames and flourishes and luxuriates everywhere, growing too, as it will not do in the South, in full sunshine. The seed is so lovely in Scotland, almost as beautiful as the flower itself-three dark steel-blue seeds set in the dying flower, which turns a rich brown. Was ever anything more daintily beautiful to be seen ? It can be grown up strings, as in the picture in the 'English Flower Garden'; but I do not think that is as pretty as rambling with its delicate growth over some light creeper, such as Jasmine or Rose, as I recommended before. I did not see in the Highlands, rather to my surprise, though I believe it is planted in some places, the beautiful crimson-berried Elder, Sambucus racemosa. This was the one remarkable plant-feature I saw in Norway last year. I was there too late to see the wild flowers. It had not been imported very long, they told us, and it adorned all the stations (there is only one short railway in Norway), throwing out long branches covered with bunches of crimson berries, which are shaped like the black bunches on the Privet rather than like the flat berries of the common Elder. At a distance the plant looks, when covered with ripe berries, like a beautiful Crimson Rambler. It is singularly effective, and I have never seen it in England. I imagine this must be because, if it grew and berried ever so well in damp places, the birds would soon clear off all the fruit. In Norway there seem to be no small birds, for there the berries hung for weeks and weeks, in crimson loveliness. The shrub is about the height of Lilac bushes; the berries grow on the old wood, and the growth of the year is a most brilliant green. It is a plant that more people should try to grow in damp situations.

We were far North, up in Sutherlandshire, where the great storm of two years ago laid bare miles and miles of forest. I never saw a more curious sight-pathetic and sad too, in a way. The poor trees, which had from their youth up been accustomed to storms from the south and west, had sent out long roots, and buried them deep under rocks and stones, which gave them firm hold to resist the blast. But on this November morning two years ago the snow was on the tree-tops, which made them heavy, and the furious gale swept on them from the north, and down they fell in thousands-whole hillsides laid bare, without one tree left standing, all torn up by the roots. It will be many years before the countryside is cleared of its own fallen timber.

We lived a mile from the sea. The Sutherlandshire coast is tame enough, but beautifully desolate-no travellers, no tourists, nothing to disturb the solitude. I am not very fond of the East Coast, as there in the afternoon one is only able to enjoy reflected sunshine. It always reminds me of friends as they grow cold; they expect us to be warmed by the sunshine of yesterday. Once I went down alone to the shore; it was a beautiful evening, with hundreds of shades of pearly greys and pinks reflected on sand and wave-an evening to make mean things noble and costly things ridiculous, an evening that humbles one down to the very dust, and yet lifts one clean off one's feet with enthusiasm and exultation. I remember years ago a friend of mine telling me she had met Jenny Lind, who had then just left the stage, at a quiet South Coast seaside bathing-place. Jenny Lind was sitting on the steps of a bathing-machine, and my friend began talking to her and asking her'if she did not think she would miss terribly the excitement of acting."Very likely,'she answered, 'but I had ceased to be able to admire that,'pointing to the great gold sun going down in its glory, 'and I had ceased to be able to read this,'tapping a Bible that lay on her knees. 'Don't you think it was time to give it up ? '

I had not been five minutes on this lonely Sutherland shore before I counted quite ten wild sea-birds of different kinds flying around, screaming to each other, and floating about on the tiny waves that broke gently on the sand. I suppose few can hear that sound of the waves without thinking of Tennyson's 'Break, break, break.'

A little poem of Emerson's, much less known, is a great favourite of mine, full as it is of a tender double meaning:

The delicate shells lay on the shore;

The bubbles of the latest wave

Fresh pearl to their enamel gave,

And the bellowing of the savage sea

Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

And brought my sea-born treasures home;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

I feel these lines reproach me for my many quotations. Have we any right to pick beautiful things out of books and quote them without their context ? I suspect not, and I beg you all to consider, if you find them deficient, that it is I who have taken them away from 'the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.'

In the grounds of the great castle we were near was a very interesting museum. What an excellent thing is a private museum in a large place! It would be a great advantage, I think, if it were started on many estates, or even in villages, as then the barbaric things and various specimens of natural history which different members of a family bring home might be kept where they are of distinct interest, instead of crowding up a modern sitting-room, where they look totally inappropriate and even ugly.