FLORAL CONVERSATION. 
43 
THE OLD GARDENER’S STORY. 
I will tell you, if you please, a simple story— a mere 
incident, in fact—which occurred many years ago in the 
family I serve, but which made at the time a great excite¬ 
ment among us, and may still, I hope, prove interesting 
to you. 
Through the solemn avenue of cedars which leads to 
our mausoleum, I have followed three dukes to the grave. 
The second of these, at one period of his life, was most 
austere and haughty. I may speak of his faults, although 
he is dead, because he lived to hate them, and to cast 
them from him ; and I have no hesitation in enlarging 
upon them, as the circumstances of my story prompt. 
Well, then, he was just the proudest, coldest, most dis¬ 
agreeable duke that ever stalked (“ stalk, to walk with 
high and superb steps,” says Dr. Johnson) over the earth. 
It was a positive insult to the English language to call so 
much ungraciousness “ your grace.” We gardeners used 
to declare that the thermometers fell twenty degrees when¬ 
ever he walked through the houses ; and that the watei 
.froze in the tanks and cisterns. We were prepared to 
