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TO, 
Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board, 
To wreathe the cup ere the wine be poured. 
Bring flowers ! They are springing in wood and vale, 
Their breath floats out on the southern gale, 
And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose, 
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.’’ 
Mrs. Hemans. 
CHAPTER I. 
FLORAL DECORATIONS. 
S O many are the social qualities of flowers that it would be a difficult task 
to enumerate them. We always feel welcome when, on entering a 
room, we find a display of flowers on the table. Where there are flowers 
about, the hostess appears glad, the children pleased, the very dog and cat 
grateful for our arrival, the whole scene and all the personages seem more 
hearty, homely, and beautiful, because of those bewitching roses, and orchids ; 
and lilies, and mignonette! Assuredly, of all simple domestic ornaments 
flowers must have the first place. 
“ Better hang a wild rose over the toilette than nothing,” says Leigh Hunt ; 
“ the eye that looks in the glass will see there something besides itself, and 
acquire something of a religious right to respect itself, in thinking by how 
many objects in the creation the bloom of beauty is shared.” 
Speaking of breakfast in summer, the same prince of essayists says, “ Set 
flowers on your table, a whole nosegay, if you can get it, or but two or three, 
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