GARDEN ROSES. I 75 



Streets,* and which the swell I spoke of would 

 have considered offal — a Moss- Rosebud, with a 

 bit of fern attached. Only a twopenny Rose ; but 

 as I carried it in my coat, and gazed on it, and 

 specially when, waking next morning, I saw it in 

 my water-jug — saw it as I lay in my dingy bed- 

 room, and heard the distant roar of Piccadilly in- 

 stead of the thrush's song — saw it, and thought 

 of my own Roses — it seemed as though they had 

 sent to me a messenger, whom they knew I loved, 

 to bid me** come home, come home." Then I 

 thought of our dinner-party overnight, and how 

 my neighbor thereat, a young gentleman who had 

 nearly finished a fine fortune and a strong consti- 

 tution, had spoken to me of a mutual friend, one 

 of the best and cheeriest fellows alive, as '' an aw- 

 ful duffer," "moped to death," "buried alive in 

 some dreadful hole" (dreadful hole being a charm- 

 ing place in the country), because he has no taste 

 for robbing or being robbed at races, can't see the 

 wit of swearing, and has an insuperable partiality 

 for his own wife. And I arose, reflecting; and 

 though I had taken my lodgings and arranged my 



Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street, 

 Till — think of that, who find life so sweet — 

 She hates the smell of Roses !" 



— Hood. 



