l6 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



Upon the window of the rail conveyance, a horrible dread 

 of imposition vexed my unquiet soul, and I was so cowardly 

 as to give an evasive answer (our vulgar forefathers used to 

 call it lying) when a friend am.ong my fellow-passengers 

 inquired the purport of my journey. Nor were my silly sus- 

 picions expelled until my hansom from the station stopped 

 before the General Cathcart Inn, and the landlord met me, 

 Avith a smile on his face and with a Senateur Vaisse in his 

 coat, which glowed amid the gloom like the red light on a 

 midnight train, and (in my eyes, at any rate) made summer 

 of that damp and dismal day. Within his portals I found 

 a crowd of other exhibitors, some with Roses in their coats 

 like himself, and some without, for the valid reason, that 

 they w^ere there in their shirt-sleeves, with no coats at all, 

 just as you would see them at their daily work, and some 

 of them only spared from it to cut and stage their flowers. 

 These welcomed me with outstretched hands, and seemed 

 amused when, on their apologising for their soiled appear- 

 ance, I assured them of my vivid affection for all kinds of 

 florlcultural dirt, and that I counted no man worthy of the 

 name of gardener whose skin was always white and clean. 

 No, a rich, glowing, gipsy brown is that one touch from 

 Nature's paint - brush, which makes the whole world of 



