OCTOBER. 216 



not Stay to tell how, but he found himself, soon after our departure, 

 one of a motley assemblage, the property of an itinerant flower- 

 seller, who was lustily advertising his wares in one of the fashionable 

 thoroughfares as, " All a-growing, all a-blowing !" He stopped at a 

 house to which he was beckoned by a lady at the window, who, with 

 two or three other plants, purchased No. 3. They were soon the 

 inmates of the drawing-room, and for a time all seemed to " live in 

 clover." But as their attractions faded, so did attention; and it 

 brooks not how, but poor No. 3, after having passed through various 

 stages of degradation, beginning in the kitchen, and ending by being 

 an occupant of that indescribable place, the backyard of a London resi- 

 dence, was for a time forgotten. But " in every deep there is a lower 

 deep ;" so our poor companion experienced. He now became black and 

 sooty, lost all his leaves (he hadn't many when he left the drawing- 

 room), was trampled upon by the French poodle, and numerous 

 nightly wandering grimalkins, not to mention other more important 

 indignities. He was placed there in autumn ; he remained there 

 all the winter, enduring rain and frost and snow. 



It would be too long a tale to tell how his circumstances became 

 altered, how he found himself at length rescued from his degrading 

 position, and with his branches carefully sponged, occupying a place 

 in a cucumber-frame miles away from smoky London ; how he 

 gradually put forth new leaves and branches, then buds and flowers ; 

 how he went back again to the very house of the lady, who bought 

 him of the hawker, as fresh and as healthy as when he left the stove 

 of the nursery in the Edgeware Road. But so it was. Plants have 

 romantic lives as well as men. 



But of myself and No. 2: we enjoj^ed the best treatment for 

 a year or two, when, for reasons which I need not relate, the col- 

 lection of which we formed a part was put up to be sold bv auction. 

 Very many were disposed of; my companion and I were separated. 

 I remained behind unsold, and was returned, among others, to a 

 greenhouse. Here we were almost forgotten, scarce any one ever 

 looked at us. Sometimes a man, who " looked after" the place, 

 gave us a little water, and left the door of our house open for an 

 hour ; but we oftener had no attendance at all, being left the sport 

 of sun and drought. Winter came on : we had no artificial warmth 

 aff^orded us. The frost penetrated the soil in which we were grow- 

 ing, and forced me to cast my leaves. The winter passed away; 

 scarce any of us had died ; a Franciscea, and one or two other stove- 

 plants, looked sickly; but beyond losing the greater part of their 

 leaves, and being covered with insects, they had experienced no 

 material damage. Of course, the neglect to water us contributed 

 materially to render us insensible to frost. Early in spring a neigh- 

 bouring gentleman bought several of us, myself among the number. 

 Proper treatment soon restored us to our wonted vigour, and a few 

 months of our altered circumstances obliterated all trace of former 

 neglect. 



Crayon. 



