ve," continued that eccentric genius, "One night I
was walking alone in my garden. There was great stillness amongst the
branches and flowers and more than common sweetness in the air. I heard
a low and pleasant sound, and knew not whence it came: at last I
perceived _the broad leaf of a flower move_, and underneath I saw a
procession of creatures the size and color of green and gray
grasshoppers, _bearing a body laid out on a rose leaf_, which they
buried with song, and then disappeared."

THE PINK.

The PINK (_dianthus_) is a very elegant flower. I have but a short story
about it. The young Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis the Fifteenth,
was brought up in the midst of flatterers as fulsome as those rebuked by
Canute. The youthful prince was fond of cultivating pinks, and one of
his courtiers, by substituting a floral changeling, persuaded him that
one of those pinks planted by the royal hand had sprung up into bloom in
a single night! One night, being unable to sleep, he wished to rise, but
was told that it was midnight; he replied "_Well then, I desire it to be
morning_."

The pink is one of the commonest of the flowers in English gardens. It
is a great favorite all over Europe. The botanists have enumerated about
400 varieties of it.

THE PANSY OR HEARTS-EASE.

The PANSY (_viola tricolor_) commonly called _Hearts-ease_, or
_Love-in-idleness_, or _Herb-Trinity_ (_Flos Trinitarium_), or
_Three-faces-under-a-hood_, or _Kit-run-about_, is one of the richest
and loveliest of flowers.

The late Mrs. Siddons, the great actress, was so fond of this flower
that she thought she could never have enough of it. Besides round beds
of it she used it as an edging to all the flower borders in her garden.
She liked to plant a favorite flower in large masses of beauty. But such
beauty must soon fatigue the eye with its sameness. A round bed of one
sort of flowers only is like a nosegay composed of one sort of flowers
or of flowers of the same hue. She was also particularly fond of
evergreens because they gave her garden a pleasant aspect even in the
winter.

"Do you hear him?"--(John Bunyan makes the guide enquire of Christiana
while a shepherd boy is singing beside his sheep)--"I will dare to say
this boy leads a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called
_hearts-ease_ in his bosom, than he that is clothed in silk and purple."

Shakespeare has connected this flower with a compliment to the maiden
Queen of England.