124 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



gems. Then Invite her to select her suite. Or take her to 

 some gay emporium — woe to the man who shall cry '' shop " 

 therein, for fifty pairs of angry scissors would find swift 

 way to his heart ! — where, behind acres of plate-glass, and 

 upon miles of counter, the rich thick silk stands up in 

 pyramids, and the delicate aristocratic satin gleams like an 

 opal. Ask the shopmen (I beg pardon, the aides-de-camp, 

 or whatever may be their modern title) to educe their 

 newest, most recherche' robes, and beseech of Venus to 

 choose. 



Will there not be In these cases a delicious perplexity, 

 an ecstasy of amazement, an embarrassment of riches } 

 Imagine to yourself this happy hesitation, and you will 

 know something of my present sweet uncertainty. How- 

 am I to begin my selection of Roses .^ It seems as though, 

 gazing upon an illuminated city, I was asked to point out 

 the brightest candles ; as though, where fire-flies gleamed 

 by the million, and humming-birds glowed by the thou- 

 sand, I was ordered to transfix with the entomological pin 

 the brightest specimens of the one, and to adjust upon 

 the ornithological wires the most exquisite examples of the 

 other. 



As to any scientific arrangement, ethnological, genea- 



