252 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



yours be fraught with pleasure and with pain. Now shall 

 you taste daintily the candied peels, and now toss fretfully 

 on piercing grits. Now you shall sleep, and all shall be 

 serene, blissful. You are dreaming, so sweetly dreaming, 

 the happy hours away. The great day has come. 



" A happier smile illumes each brow, 



With quicker spread each heart uncloses ; 

 And all is happiness, for now 



The valley holds its feast of Roses." 



Your own are magnificent, larger than those which bloom 

 in Manchester chintz above your slumbering brow, 9 inches 

 in diameter. You reach the show ; you win every prize, 

 laurels enough to make triumphal arches along all your 

 homeward way. Suddenly a change, a horrible change, 

 comes o'er the spirit of your dream. How the van, in 

 which you are travelling with your Roses, jumps and jolts ! 

 how dark the night, and how the thunder rolls ! Ah, tout 

 est perdu ! Crash fall the horses, or rather the nightmares, 

 down a steep incline, and you find yourself standing, aghast 

 and hopeless, knee-deep m pot-pourri ! 



Awaking, for the sixteenth time, with a terrible impres- 

 sion that you have overslept yourself, and that the time for 

 cutting Roses is past, you are comforted in hearing the 



