272 POPULAR TALES OF FLOWERS 
beauties of the place were abundant, there were no tokens 
of the presence of that taste which might have rendered 
this country town highly attractive to the stranger. 
One exception to this general rule daily delighted and 
refreshed my eyes. It was a garden — a small one, it is 
true; yet there was within and about it an air at once 
calculated to excite interest in the presiding genius of the 
place. This proved to be a very aged man; and as from 
day to day I passed his little inclosure, I saw him ever 
engaged among his flowers. 
At last, pleased, perhaps, by the approbation which he 
had seen more than once upon my face, he one morning 
met me at the gate, and invited me to enter. I did so 
at once, and the more readily because the friend whom 
I was visiting had just given me some account of the old 
gentleman. He had come to this village many years be- 
fore — no one knew whence — had kept himself aloof from 
those who sought him, seldom, if ever, attended church, 
and, in short, seemed neither to think of nor care for 
aught save his beloved garden. His love for flowers had 
risen to an absolute mania. 
As I passed from one to another of these his favourites, 
he followed me closely, expatiating with zeal upon the 
varieties of colour, of texture, and of form to be found in 
this portion of the vegetable kingdom. 
“I have a fancy,’’ said he, “that there are flowers in 
heaven, and that they only bloom in the perfection of 
beauty there.” 
“It may be so,” I answered, while I smiled at the 
singularity of the conceit. “ At all events, we know that 
many a lovely ‘ human flower ’ has been transplanted from 
the watchful tenderness of its earthly keeper, to bloom, 
and to bud, and to bring forth fruit in Paradise.” 
“But,” said the old man, not choosing to be thus 
diverted from his original subject, “ there will be flowers 
there such as we love and cherish here. God created 
everything Wery good,’ that is, perfect.. When man lost 
the image of his Maker, all nature sympathised in his 
fall. If he had not thus sinned, these fair flowers would 
not fade and die. As long as they spring and bloom on 
earth, they must share in his imperfection; but when man 
loses the thorns and thistles of his moral nature, then the 
race of flowers will likewise thrive in the perfection of 
beauty and of grace.” 
