THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



their beauty and sweet smell, he left their care to his 

 wife. 



In a corner there is a certain old white rose-bush that 

 tradition, in the voice of the caretaker, informs you is 

 the identical one beside which lovely Eleanor Custis 

 plighted troth with Lawrence Lewis, the preux cavalier 

 of his day. Nor were these lovers the last to find hap- 

 piness beside the fair bush. For tradition goes on to 

 say that ever since the rose has proved a fatal spot for 

 man and maid, and that many a happy pair first found 

 courage to ask and to answer the great question as they 

 paused to look at its burden of bloom. To-day, no 

 more than in sweet Nellie's youth, can lovers resist the 

 persuasion of the white rose-bush. Possibly some po- 

 tent spell lingers in the perfume of its flowers, or the 

 spirits of lovers now dead set other hearts to beating 

 where theirs beat before. At all events, any couple who 

 dread the chains of matrimony will do well to avoid the 

 old bush, harmless and sweet as it appears to the eye 

 in all the bravery of its June blossoming. 



One likes to imagine that this bush was planted by 

 Washington and his wife some wet spring morning, 

 when the earliest-come birds were twittering on the bud- 

 ding boughs: planted with laughter and much argu- 

 ment as to just where it would look best, and finally 

 set in its place by those strong hands behind whose 

 capable power lay a heart not less warm with human 

 love than noble with sublime faith in ultimate human 



