nting a basket of roses to the
French Parliament on May-day, but this has long ceased.

Both in France and Italy, and also in Britain, many new roses have been
raised, some nearly black, others of curious shapes. The first yellow
rose was brought to England from Turkey by Nicholas Lets, a London
merchant; other varieties have come from farther East. Scotch roses have
been famous for centuries; they are usually very fragrant, and well
guarded by sharp spines.

Roses are still grown for the market in some parts of the South of
England, even as near London as Mitcham, in Surrey, a place famous for
its fragrant plants, such as lavender and peppermint. Many roses are
brought to our island from the flower farms of South France; some come
from Holland, a country which supplies us with most of our bulbs.

When we walk about in London City as it is now, we can hardly fancy that
it had an abundance of beautiful roses in the olden time. Yet they used
to be particularly plentiful on the west side, where the Old Bourne and
River of Wells flowed down to the Thames. The gardens of Ely House, of
which we have a memory in Hatton Garden, now a street, were so full of
roses during Tudor times that the flowers were measured by bushels.
During the long and unfortunate Wars of the Roses, the white rose was
taken for an emblem by the Yorkists, and the red kind was displayed by
the Lancastrians. The Yorkists said that they chose the white because it
represented the purity of their cause, and the Lancastrians gloried in
their red flower since it told that they were ready to give their
heart's blood to obtain the victory. In Shakespeare's _Henry VI._ there
is a scene in the Temple Garden, in which the two parties pick these
roses, to show their opposition.

Not only is the rose our national emblem, but it also appears on the
collar of St. Patrick's Order, which shows roses and harps joined by
knots; and it is one of the adornments of the Order of the Bath. We may
discover this flower, too, figured on the crests of several noble
families. The oldest rose-tree in the world is said to be one growing on
the walls of Hildesheim Cathedral, which is believed to date from the
reign of the great Charlemagne.

MURIEL'S FIRST PATIENT.

Muriel clapped her hands and gave a little jump for joy when she saw
Aunt Margaret coming up the garden path. Aunt Margaret was a hospital
nurse, and Muriel had quite made up her mind to be one as well, when sh