266 The Story of a White Camellia. 



snugly in its many covers of green. Only at the top, at the outermost point, it 

 sbone more clear ; there was the veil becoming transparent, 



" It is cold here, whilst outside it is now spring, and I only can understand thee, 

 poor flower ! we both knew a warmer sun !" And filled with a sympathy which over- 

 flowed from a heart suddenly seized with a home-longing, this daughter of the South 

 bowed herself, and her lips touched, lightly as a breath, the Camellia-bud. Then 

 she slowly turned away and walked with lingering steps back through the labyrinth 

 of flowers, pausing here and there and stroking, caressingly, a broad, velvety leaf, or 

 bending to breathe deeply the fragrance of a flower. 



Like the veritable flower-queen, she wandered there in her white robe and spark- 

 ling veil, her girdle ornamented with a bunch of violets, and followed meanwhile, by 

 a good spii'it ; even the bowed form of the old gardener. 



Very many times Josephine glided, at late hours, into the conservatory before the 

 much-loved flower bloomed ; often in the rain and wind, when the crystal drops would 

 lodge in her hair and on her long, dark eyelashes, and she, with childish glee, would 

 shake them ofi^. 



" I cannot sleep when I fail to bid them good-night," confessed she to old Pierre. 

 At last she possessed, in all its chaste magnificence, the white Camellia-Queen. One 

 evening she entered the consul's study, with beaming eyes and glowing cheeks. She 

 raised not her head, but walked with the assurance of a beloved wife, lightly across 

 the room to his side, and laid the wondrous flower upon the papers which riveted so 

 closely his gaze. 



" There it is, and with you it shall bloom and die !" whispered the beautiful lips. 



And the first white Camellia at Malmaison bloomed and faded upon the study 

 table of the consul. 



Later, when Josephine wore tjie French Imperial crown — and this she did with 

 the meekness of a violet — the exotic from her native land shared, with her other 

 favorite, her gentle protection and care. Her heart and her thoughts fled for com- 

 fort and consolation to these precious flowers. 



In the diary of a gifted princess is recorded, touchingly, the account of her visit 

 to the apartments of the Empress in Paris, in 1808, as she witnessed the profusion of 

 flowers with which this graceful woman was surrounded, and with which she was 

 associated from day to day. 



" Everywhere were beautiful paintings," she writes, •' which belonged to the pic- 

 ture-gallery, and which are returned thither every year to make room for new ones. 

 The tables were rendered strikingly beautiful by a collection of the rarest flowers 

 of marble whiteness. In every corner were porcelain vases filled with costly bou- 

 quets ; in four of which — of the lovely blue iSevres fabrique — were deposited rare 

 blossoms, at least four feet in height. In this room is the excellent and well-selected 

 library of the Empress. The book-shelves, which surround the entire room, contain 

 the most admirable works, especially in the department of botany. 



" In this apartment spends the Empress more than half of her time. Alexander 

 Von Humbolt's Productenkarte was placed in front of her easy chair : his work lay 

 open near it, and appeared to have been the last to occupy her mind." 



These works of our great German naturalist followed her in her exile. There is 



