152 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
leaves his home, for the first time, to visit the 
opposite coast; but so truly British were his 
habits, that nothing could please or satisfy him. 
The soup was meagre, the pottage acid, the 
peas sweet, the wine sour, the coffee bitter; 
the girls brown, their eyes too black, their caps 
too high, their petticoats too short, their Ian* 
guage unintelligible ; their houses old, the inns 
dirty, the country too open, the roads too 
straight: in short, he saw everything with such 
discontented eyes as to render the party uncom¬ 
fortable, until good fortune led us to a rustic 
inn, where, in a small garden, were growing 
several fine Stocks, which, he affirmed, were the 
first good things he had seen since he left Sus¬ 
sex. On hearing the landlady acknowledge 
them to be de Girojliers de Brompton , lie insisted 
on halting at her house, where he treated the 
party with a dejeuner d la fourcliette , and left 
the village with a sprig of the Brompton Stock 
in his button-hole, his eyes sparkling with cham¬ 
pagne and good-humour, which lasted for the 
remainder of the journey, during which he often 
exclaimed, ‘ Thanks to the Brompton Stock !’ ” 
