Summer Highs

This is the highest of high points in the summer, where both gardens are at their absolute zenith, packed with flowers and a-buzz with happy insects. The roses at Downton, none of which were planted more than two years ago, and many of them from our own young cuttings, have put on some really splendid growth this year, and are flinging up enormous arching stems over the crumbly brick walls, and making great sturdy bushes in the rose garden. The perennials at Downton are fading now and their place, visually, is being taken by a positive firework display of dahlias. All this exuberance seems to have affected the five little hens, who have suddenly all turned broody at once, all in a heap in the yarrow bed.