XIX 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 



The Rose (mafikind will all agree), 



The Rose the Queen of Floivers should he'' 



— Sappho (600 B.C. 



I met my first love in the rose world as a boy of 12 

 in the old gardens of a private school at Lyme Regis, 

 Dorset. Oh, how I loved ! And that love has re- 

 mained with me all my hfe. She was out of bounds, 

 and for two days I worshipped afar off ; but her guar- 

 dian, Avho, on the second day, chanced to weed the 

 rose-bed, told me her name was Marie Van Houtte, 

 and, seeing my great love for flowers, cut her for me 

 in all the glory of her autumn tints of lemon-yellow 

 edged with rose, and with outer petals suffused with a 

 rosy blush. From that day my love for roses grew, 

 and the following term I made a small garden, and 

 before the spring, bought, with two weeks' pocket- 

 money and two penny stamps (8d. in all) my first rose 

 tree. This was soon followed by another, for my first 

 tree was selected regardless of advice, for size to me 

 was its great recommendation, ana it resulted in a 

 failure. The next was a " Gloire de Dijon," and, 

 although forbidden to climb, yet it gave me one or two 

 roses before I left my garden and said good-bye to the 

 old school. It was eight years after I chanced on a 

 holiday to go to Lyme Regis, and found the garden 

 overgrown, but from the rough grass and stone there 

 waved a hand to greet me ; it was a long shoot of the 

 old ** Gloire de Dijon " I had planted as a boy. Shoots 

 had come and shoots had gone. They had been cut or 

 trampled down, and the old stock was almost dead ; 

 but its welcome was there, and I carefully removed it 

 with my Knife, and took it home, and budded from it 

 more than one good tree. Already I was a rose- 

 grower, at least I thought so, for about th^ year 1898 



