MANURES. 87 



In like manner does the wee golden-haired lassie delight 

 to do homage to the queen of her little world, her doll, 

 watching her tenderly, and singing a lullaby which, regard- 

 ing the condition of those two immense blue eyes, appears 

 to be quite hopeless ; then decking her with every bit of 

 finery which she can beg from mammy or nurse, and 

 waiting upon her with a fond untiring service. 



And even so did I, in the childhood of that life which is 

 always young — do not our hearts foreknow, my brothers, the 

 happy truth, which old men certify, that the love of flowers 

 is of those few earthly pleasures which age cannot wither ? 

 — even so did I, in 



" My sallet days, 

 When I was green in judgment," 



essay, with an enthusiastic though ofttimes mistaken zeal, 

 to propitiate and to serve the Rose. And specially, as 

 with my little boy and his large idol, in the matter of food. 

 I tried to please her with a great diversity of diet. I made 

 anxious experiment of a multiplicity of manures — organic 

 and inorganic, animal and vegetable, cheap and costly 

 home and foreign. I laboured to discover her favourite 

 dish as earnestly as the alchymist to realise the Philoso- 

 pher's Stone ; but I differed from the alchymist, the 



