66 THE heart's-ease. 



weaihcr-office, in the prospective wisdom of Its 

 sundry clerks. My mignonette, my slocks, and 

 wall-flowers, and vivid marigolds, had never quailed 

 throughout the preceding months ; they continued 

 blowing without intermission, yielding constant 

 bouquets, with scarcely a perceptable diminution 

 of their beautiful abundance ; and never had I been 

 disappointed when looking for the smiling features 

 of my loveliest charge— the small, but magnificent 

 Heart's-ease. Two roots in particular, the one 

 intermixing its gold with purple, the other with 

 pure white, appeared to derive fresh brilliancy 

 from the season, abundantly recompensing my daily 

 visits. 



Sweet flower ! Tranquillity makes its lowly 

 rest upon its dark green couch ; and cheerfulness 

 is legibly wTitten on every clear tint of its glossy 

 petals. As a child, I loved that humble blossom ; 

 and when childhood's happv days had long been 

 flown, I loved it better than before. Yet it was 

 not until within a comparatively short period that I 

 found a human being altogether assimilating to it ; 

 and since his transplantation to the garden of 

 glorified spirits, nearly two years ago, I have pon- 

 dered on the exquisite traits of his singular charac- 

 ter, with a growing certainty that to me, and to 

 many, he came as a warning voice to chide our 

 sluggishness in that race wherein he strove, not as 

 uncertainty,— wherein he ran, not as one that 



