1 8 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



meats and steaming tumblers, heavy with the smoke and 

 smell of tobacco, was cool and perfumed ; and the table — 

 you could not see its homely surface of plain deal, stained 

 with spilt drinks, scorched by the expiring cuba, dinted by 

 knife-handles and by nut-crackers, when oration or ballad 

 ceased; for it was covered from end to end with beautiful 

 and fragrant Roses ! There was nothing to remind of 

 coarser pleasures or of the tavern here, except, by the way, 

 the bottles, which, once filled with the creamy stout and 

 with the fizzing beer of ginger, now, like converted drunk- 

 ards, were teetotally devoted to pure water, and in that 

 water stood the Rose. 



A prettier sight, a more complete surprise of beauty, 

 could not have presented itself on that cold and cloudy 

 morning ; and in no royal palace, no museum of rarities, no 

 mart of gems, was there that day in all the world a table so 

 fairly dight. As if to heighten our enjoyment of the scene, 

 and just as we came upon it, the day darkened without, and 

 the sleet beat against the windows as though enraged by 

 this sudden invasion of Flora, and determined to fire a 

 volley on her ranks ; but her soldiers only smiled more 

 brightly at the idle harmless cannonade, just as the brave 

 general on his sign outside cared no more for the rattling 



