14 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



over, the proximity of the ist of April made me 

 more than ordinarily suspicious. Nevertheless, 

 upon a second inspection, I was so impressed by a 

 look and tone of genuine reality that I wrote ul- 

 timately to the address indicated, asking somewhat 

 sarcastically and incredulously, as being a shrewd 

 superior person not to be sold at any figure, what 

 sorts of Roses were so kind as to bloom during 

 the month of April at Nottingham, and nowhere 

 else. By return of post I was informed, with 

 much more courtesy than I had any claim to, that 

 the Roses in question were grown under glass — 

 where and how, the growers would be delighted 

 to show me, if I Avould oblige them by my com- 

 pany. 



On Easter Monday, in due course, upon a raw 

 and gusty day, when spring and winter, sleet and 

 sunshine, were fighting round after round, like 

 Spring and Langan,* for victory — winter now re- 

 treating, sobbing and pufTing, to his corner, and 

 now coming on in force, black with rage, resistless, 

 hitting out hard and straight, until the sun's eye 

 had a sickly glare, and the cold world trembled in 



* I witnessed their great fight for the championship, in a show 

 of mechanical figures at Newark, at that early period of childhood 

 when such things seem to us realities ; and I was astounded at the 

 courage and condition of Langan, who was knocked into fhe aiT 

 about four feet from the ground at the end of every round, and in- 

 variably came down on his head ! 



