388 THE GARDENER. [Sept. 



morning of the show. If the weather is broken, and clouds without 

 and barometer within warn you of impending rain, then gather ye 

 Eoses while ye may, in the afternoon and the evening before the show; 

 but if it is 



**In the prime of summer-time, 

 An evening calm and cool," 



let your Roses rest after the heat of the day, and cut them on the 

 morrow, when they awake with the sun, refreshed with gracious dews. 



Wherefore, early to your bed, my amateur, your bed of Roses and of 

 Thorns ; for as surely as the schoolboy who, having received a cake 

 from home, takes with him a last slice to his cubicule, awakes in feverish 

 repletion, turning painfully upon the crusty crumbs, so shall this night 

 of yours be fraught with pleasure and with pain. Now shall you taste 

 daintily the candied peels, and now toss fretfully on piercing grits. 

 Now you shall sleep, and all shall be serene, blissful. You are dream- 

 ing, so sweetly dreaming, the happy hours away. The great day has 

 come, 



"A happier smile illumes each brow, 



With quicker spread each heart uncloses ; 

 And all is happiness, for now 



The valley holds its feast of Roses." 



Your own are magnificent, larger than those which bloom in Man- 

 chester chintz above your slumbering brow, 9 inches in diameter. 

 You reach the show ; you win every prize, laurels enough to make 

 triumphal arches along all your homeward way. Suddenly a change, 

 a horrible change, comes o'er the spirit of your dream. How the van, 

 in which you are travelling with your Roses, jumps and jolts ! how 

 dark the night, and how the thunder rolls ! Ah, tout est perdu I 

 Crash fall the horses, or rather the nightmares, down a steep incline, 

 and you find yourself standing, aghast and hopeless, knee-deep in xoot- 

 pourri ! 



Awaking, for the sixteenth time, with a terrible impression that you 

 have overslept yourself, and that the time for cutting Roses is past, 

 you are comforted in hearing the clock strike two. Another restless 

 hour, and you are up in the grey dawn. At 3.30 you should be among 

 the Roses, never so lovely as now, lifting their heads for the first kisses 

 of the sun, and, alas ! for decapitation. See, your gardener is there, 

 keen as yourself. He fills a score of the tubes with pure sweet rain- 

 water ; he places them in one of your spare boxes, and is ready to 

 follow, when, having glanced at your programmes, and armed yourself 

 with the trenchant blades, you lead the way to glory and the Roses. 



Cut first of all your grandest blooms, because no Mede nor Persian 



