34 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



Sunday evenings, and helping them to collect and 

 arrange their posies, teaching them names, habits, 

 and uses, and showing them the colored likenesses 

 and the histories which are provided in a cheap 

 form by the Society for Promoting Christian 

 Knowledge, and in other illustrated manuals. 



But I must cease now to babble of green 

 fields, and must come away from the wild to the 

 garden Rose. 



CHAPTER III. 



OUR QUEEN OF BEAUTY. 



Having proved, as I hope, that there is no 

 royal road, no golden key, to an excellent Rose- 

 garden, but that a poor man, on the contrary, who 

 loves the flower, may walk about in March with a 

 Rose in his coat — while Dives, who only likes ^ 

 may be Roseless under all his vitreous domes — I 

 will proceed now to instruct those who, having 

 this love, desire instruction, In the lessons which a 

 long and happy experience has taught to me. 



And yet, before I commence my lecture, I 

 would fain enlarge the number of disciples : I would 

 multiply the competitors by exhibiting the prizes, 



