long blossom-bordered aisles whenever I
am so minded. Here, in his floral sanctuary, one may take deep
draughts from the warm subtly-scented air till, someway or other, it is
transmuted into the alembic of the soul.

May no blight fall on his roses or his heart! May God love him and let
him live long!

This man's roses are of ivory and pink, but a few are red as if they
might be the blood of some great wounded queen.

Nearly all the roses are long-winged and heavy-headed. They could not
be otherwise when they come and go from the land where dreams are born.
Once, a poet told that the soul of a rose went into his blood. This
was how he came to write the _Idylls of the King_.

One of the gardeners ties the red roses to stakes and he will not have
it that the habit is cruel. "You may have noticed, Lady"--and here he
tightly draws the cord--"that most folk are hung by their sweethearts."
I almost hate this man.

Hath not a rose-tree organs, passions, senses? If you prick it does it
not bleed? Verily I say unto you that it hath and it does.

It is near to April before the lilies are at flood-tide. You must
needs see them before Passion Week when the gardeners cut and send them
to a large hungry place called down the line, where, in prairie
churches of tin and pine and sod, the Eastertide worshippers consider
the lily and sing songs about death and life.

Not an inch of space is lost in the long lines where, tall and lissome,
the stalks bend and curtsy to the passer-by. The glory of the lily is
short-lived, for always they are cut off in maturity. The message they
give is not one of prophecy and resurrection as the writers have ever
taught. You may hear the message if you are still enough. "There is
no second flowering time" they whisper. "Love while life doth last."

But, after all, the lilies are white like the snow outside, so that I
esteem the big purple hyacinths better, and the bobbing daffodils.

There is an osier chair in one room wherein I often sit and watch the
buyers flit from plant to plant. The women who come from the British
Isles choose primroses, while those of Ontario and the other provinces
to the south, prefer a lilac in bloom, marguerites, or
carnations--anything they knew and loved at home.

The Fraus, Madames, and Senoritas from Europe (every one must have a
blossom for Easter, else where is luck to hail from?) are better
satisfied with heliotropes, azaleas, and claret-coloured