lo A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



out-trotting at this moment your expensive but 

 tardy steed/ 



Not a soupgon of sympathy can I ever feel for the 

 discomfiture of those Rose-growers who trust in 

 riches. They see lovely blooms at the Rose shows — 

 selected, probably, from fifty thousand trees, and the 

 results of excellent culture, untiring vigilance, and 

 care — and they say, We will have these Roses for our 

 own forthwith, and in abundance. They have only 

 to put down the names, give an order, and sign a 

 cheque, to buy as they buy chairs and tables. ' They 

 go home and tell their gardener that they have 

 ordered a most splendid collection of Rose-trees, and 

 that they quite expect him next summer to have the 

 best display in the county. From my heart I pity 

 that gardener. They might as well have brought 

 him Bob's hack, and told him that if he could not 

 win the Derby and the St. Leger with him, they 

 really must find somebody who could. He is not 

 even allowed to choose a situation. The tall ones 

 are to be planted on each side of the broad walk, and 

 the little ones opposite the boudoir window. The 

 broad walk may be as bleak as a common, or, under 

 the shade of melancholy boughs, as dank as a 

 mausoleum ; and the dear little bed opposite the 

 boudoir never sees the sun until mid-day, when it is 

 grilled for three mortal hours, and then given back to 



