FIRST FIGHT IN THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 209 



hounds run better, or when are rose-trees trans- 

 planted more successfully? November brought me 

 one of those matted packages which we florists love 

 so well. There is excitement in unpacking one's first 

 tailed-coat, first gun, first pair of "tops; " but it is 

 transitory, and does not return; whereas the gladness 

 of opening those big bundles and robust hampers 

 fades not, but is a joy for ever. My gardener and 

 I surveyed the under-garclener jealously as he bore 

 our treasure from the carrier's cart, keenly watching, 

 as some mother and mother-in-law might watch the 

 minutest action of a new nursemaid, permit-ted to 

 carry, for the first time, His Eoyal Highness the 

 baby. No sooner had we reached the garden-house 

 than, wildly regardless of the expense, recklessly for- 

 getful of Miss Edgeworth's "Waste not, Waste not" 

 wherein, you may remember, an economical youth 

 produces, at an archery meeting, a piece of string 

 which he had saved, and wins the first prize in a 

 canter I rushed, open-knifed, at my prostrate 

 package, anxiously as an archaeologist at the last 

 new thing in mummies. One by one, the tall clean 

 standards were uplifted, tenderly and delicately, lest 

 harm be done to branch or fibrous root ; and those 

 parchment " tallies," which always twist and curl 

 themselves into the most inconvenient positions, like 

 worms who dislike the hook, were read with as much 

 enthusiastic interest as though the trees were in their 

 fullest bloom. " That's the rose we saw at Mr. So- 

 and-So's." "Hear what Mr. Rivers says of this;" 

 and out conies the little red book. " That's the 

 bloom painted in Mr. Paul's work," &c., &c, 

 15 



