EECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 71 



your monomania to have worked that plague that 

 ostracism against any thing which is not Orchids or 

 Roses. 



I shall have soruetning more to say about Orchids, 

 etc., etc. I am trying to remember if I have not 

 forgotten some incidents connected with my intimate 

 life, and I find that I have overlooked perhaps the 

 most important event of my life, except my binding 

 with the chains of matrimony. It is the celebra- 

 tion of the anniversary of my seventieth birthday in 

 1877, epoch of the most flourishing of our Club and also 

 of our business, and every thing else connected with 

 private horticulture. We were all under the impression 

 of that first grand international exhibition in Philadel- 

 phia, 1876. At that time our lover of Spectabile, and also 

 our proselyte who bought the Vanda ! were both alive. 

 These two, with probably some others unknown to me, 

 had a consultation with my wife about their mutual de- 

 sire to have me celebrating my birthday without letting 

 me know what they intended to do, and asked her if 

 she was a woman who could keep a secret. She an- 

 swered them she thought she could, but wanted to know 

 what it was before BINDING- herself. They did, and she 

 kept the secret so well that I did'nt know any thing but 

 the day of the ceremony. The preparations could not be 

 kept secret for me, but the details nothing. Only one 



