i6 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



was cool and perfumed ; and the table — you could 

 not see its homely surface of plain deal, stained with 

 spilt drinks, scorched by the expiring cigar, dinted 

 by knife-handles and by nut-crackers, when oration 

 or ballad ceased ; for it was covered from end to end 

 with beautiful and fragrant Roses ! There v/as nothing 

 to remind of coarser pleasures or of the tavern here, 

 except, by the way, the bottles, which, once filled with 

 the creamy stout and with the fizzing beer of ginger, 

 now, like converted drunkards, were teetotally devoted 

 to pure water, and in that water stood the Ros^, 



A prettier sight, a more complete surprise of 

 beauty, could not have presented itself on that cold 

 and cloudy morning ; and in no royal palace, no 

 museum of rarities, no mart of gems, was there that 

 day in all the world a table so fairly dight. As if to 

 heighten our enjoyment of the scene, and just as we 

 came upon it, the day darkened without, and the 

 sleet beat against the windows as though enraged by 

 this sudden invasion of Flora, and determined to fire 

 a volley on her ranks; but her soldiers only smiiled 

 more brightly at the idle, harmless cannonade, just as 

 the brave general on his sign outside cared no more 

 for the rattling hail than, in the flesh, a few years 

 before, he had cared for Crimean snow. 



Nor was our first enjoyment diminished, when, 

 from a general survey of this charming contrast, we 



