WE

E borrow that phrase from Tennyson, who describes. his Maud as "queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls," and, pretty as is the idealization, there is a great deal more than mere prettiness in the epithet. We are accustomed to associate the beauty of girlhood and the beauty of flowers. Sweet Jessie, the Flower of Dumblane, is only one of ten thousand charming maidens celebrated in song as roses and lilies, as violets and daisies. The graceful forms and the delicate freshness of flowers are in poetical accord with our appreciation of the modest beauty of girlhood; and to the end of time, we suppose, lovers and poets will adopt the old simile, and find nothing so graceful and appropriate.

Of all the pleasing sights this every day and sometimes very wearying world can give, there are few more pleasing than that of a group of cheerful, light-hearted, happy, pretty girls in a well laid-out garden, tripping in and out among the flower-beds, or walking hand in hand demurely enough on the gravel-paths, till some flowering beauty attracts their attention; and then a quickened step, with smiling face and heightened complexion, to examine or pluck the treasure. Some bend down to note the beauty of leaf or colour; some stand and watch with a placid pleasure the excitement of the others. A painter might be pardoned if he failed to decide which part of such a picture is the more beautiful-the unconscious flower or the conscious, animated girls. Flowers are beautiful, and the wealth of bounteous nature is exhibited in their graceful forms and exquisitely harmonious colours; but the crowning charm of expression is wanting, and,

although the mere painter might find it difficult to award the palm, we have no such hesitation. Transferred to canvas, the girls and the flowers would be equalized; the beauty of the moment might be caught, but it would be fixed and unchangeable alike for each. As they rise from the blossom they have been admiring, a new expression appears on their features, new attractions may bring forth a smile or a flush, new emotions impart a novel beauty, while the change of attitude developes new graces of outline. So the girls are more beautiful than the flowers, just as the complete existence is more beautiful than still life. There is almost an appearance of voluntary life in flowers, when the petals and leaves expand to the morning sun, or the blossom turns on the stalk to follow the motions of the luminary; and one of the most beautiful passages in descriptive poetry is that of Shelley's, when he speaks of the rose opening till,

"Fold after fold, to the fainting air,

The soul of its beauty and love lay bare."

Perhaps it is the advent of May that makes us think of gardens. In this climate it is not quite the flower month; our May-days are apt to be somewhat wintry, and night frosts chill early blossoms. But in May we enter, as it were, the gates of Flora's temple, tread lightly and hopefully on the path that leads to roses and a hundred other beauties of the garden. Very soon we shall be among them, and we enjoy their beauty by anticipation.

Not only in the sunlight and shade of the open air

are there gardens, but we have window-gardens, and even winter-gardens, conservatories where precious flowers are preserved with care, lest "the winds of heaven visit their faces too roughly;" choice bouquets of gathered varieties, little jewel-like gems for bosom or button-hole. And these flowers have their counterparts in the garden of girls. There are vases by the chimney-corner, making all around fragrant, and light, and beautiful; clustered groups of gay and graceful girls in drawing-rooms; some of rare qualities as yet treasured in conservatories, but to be transplanted when matured and full blossomed into the sunshine of the world; and there are, too, dainty, good, loving flowers ready to be placed near the hearts of brave men.

We suppose, too, to pursue the analogy, there are some "last roses of summer, left blooming alone, all their lovely companions departed and gone." Once they were a portion, perhaps, of the joyous smiling wreath of bridesmaids, and the others have advanced to the honour of brides, leaving them like the "lone one" of the song. Take heart; the song, so beautiful that it touches the heart of all who hear it, was not made for those who are gone, but for the one who is left, very charming in its solitude, and gracing with its modest beauty the fading year. And this brings us to autumn flowers, those which represent the paler attractions of the garden, but which have a certain and special beauty of their own. They do their work in making the season of the falling leaf less desolate, and cheering those whose hearts might sink when summer goes. We cannot hope to find life all sunshine, there must be an autumn of decline, a winter, perhaps, of gloom; but how much that decline and that gloom are enlivened and lightened by the loving ministration of some of those gentle, affectionate flowers in the garden of girls, who willingly transplant themselves from the bright parterres of society to share the retirement where the old, or sad, or infirm ask for the sight of a flower to refresh the eye and invigorate the mind.

There are, of course, faded flowers in the garden. There is no alchemy by which youth and beauty can be made perpetual. We have seen flowers preserved by cunning preparations, but how painted and artificial they appear; the bloom has vanished, the fragrance gone; they are spectres of flowers, only haunting, not beautifying our daily lives. We may love even faded flowers if they preserve dear memories. In many a cabinet there is a faded rose, as in many a heart there is a treasured secret and the ties are related. Even a few rose-leaves in a book give a pleasant fragrance to the page; and it will be well if sometimes, when reading a favourite author, we are reminded, by a beautiful thought or an

exquisite delineation of character, of some flower long since gathered by the " reaper among the flowers," even as the withered leaf on the page recalls the time when all was fresh, and fair, and fragrant in the garden of life.

We will end by quoting a little poem which carries out this line of thought; we met with it many years ago, and the poet-the name of Westby Gibson is on the title-page of the book-ought to be better known:

"THE FLOWER IN THE BOOK.

"Tell me,
O tell me, my mother dear,
In many a lonely and silent hour,
Why, buried in thought, do I hear you sigh;
And sometimes I see a tear in your eye,

Whilst gazing on that old withered flower!
Oh, mother, it makes my heart ache to see
Your dear sweet face with so sad a look:
Ah! there's something that troubles-something that
grieves―

A mystery to me--in the dry dead leaves
Of the flower in the book.

"O, fling it away, my mother dear,

Why keep such a crushed and withered thing? I'll bring you the sweetest wild flowers, for I know Where the violets down in the hollows grow,

And the primrose shines by the forest spring. I'll make you, dear mother, a posey sweet, And then you will kiss me, and smiling look; For there's nothing that troubles, nothing that grieves, In their rich dewy cups, as in the dead leaves Of the flower in the book."

"O bless thee, my child, for thy loving thought,
But little of life can thy young heart know-
How a simple flower may bring tears to the eyes,
And the saddest and tenderest feelings arise,
With thoughts of the years that are gone long ago!
O, I could not part with these few dead leaves
For a balmy cluster fresh from the brook;
For memories troubled, and memories bright,
Ever thrill my heart through, at the sad-sweet sight
Of the flower in the book.

"'Twas thy father gathered this flower, my child,
A treasure sweet to thy baby-eye!
But it withered soon-and thy father died-
Heart-broken, I too could have lain by his side;
But for thy dear sake-oh! I could not die!
And now, oftimes, in these lonely years,

On a relic so precious I love to look:
For memories troubled, and memories bright,
Ever thrill my heart through at the sad-sweet sight
Of the flower in the book!"

THE 'HE service being ended, Bergan naturally turned to his kinsfolk for an ampler and friendlier greeting than had been possible at their hurried meeting in the crowded vestibule. Especially-with a grateful remembrance of her yesterday's cordiality-did he look to his aunt for a word of familiar kindness, that should make him feel less alone, less of a stranger, amid the friendly chorus of salutations and leave-takings coming to his ears from the departing congregation. But, to his surprise and pain, the same indefinable chill which had made him so vaguely uncomfortable with her husband and daughter, had now taken possession of her also, and woven a thin film of ice over the manner that yesterday was so kind.

The change was so unaccountable that he could not believe in it. He told himself that the real thing at fault was his own sickly imagination, that he was morbidly sensitive, as well as foolishly exacting. He convinced his understanding, but could not silence his heart. That Cassandra of the depths continually smote his unwilling ear with her lugubrious voice, calling upon him to observe how strangely Mrs. Bergan had been transformed overnight, from the interested, cordial, even affectionate, aunt, into the polite and practised woman of the world, doing merely what courtesy required for the entertainment of the guest that circumstances had flung upon her hands.

In this state of affairs, Bergan would gladly have exchanged the dinner at Oakstead for a quiet afternoon in his room and a sober talk with his thoughts. But the invitation being already accepted, he must needs abide by the event. Accordingly, he took the vacant seat in his uncle's carriage, and was soon set down at the cottage steps.

Before dinner, the two gentlemen were left to a quiet chat to themselves on a cool, shady piazza. Bergan embraced this opportunity to explain, more fully than he had yet done, his motives and aims. He told his uncle, -a little proudly, it might be, for he wished it to be understood that he had come hither with a self-respecting purpose of independence, and not with any idea of leaning upon his friends, he told his uncle that his choice of Berganton as the starting-point of his professional career, was due to the influence of his mother. Her childhood's home, and its vicinity, had always kept a tenacious hold on her affections, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of her womanhood had been spent elsewhere, and all the deeper joys and sorrows of her life had blossomed and fruited in different soil. When, therefore, it became necessary for one of her sons to go

out into the world, in search of a better field of labour than was afforded in his native village, her thoughts naturally turned to the spot so hallowed in her memory, and where her ancestry had sent such deep, old roots into the soil, as to create a kind of kinship for evermore between their descendants and the locality. It would be a pleasant thing for Bergan, she thought, to make a home and a name for himself in a place where he possessed so strong a claim to residence; it would be equally pleasant for the old town to recognize the familiar mould of features and character in its streets; and it would be pleasantest of all for herself to know that her son was with her kinsfolk, amid well-known scenes, rather than among strangers, on ground where her thoughts could find no foothold. Some day, she hoped to visit him there, and feed her mother's pride upon his success, at the same time that she renewed her girlhood amid old associations.

Bergan then touched lightly upon his disappointment in the dull old town-finding it so much duller and older, even to decrepitude, than he had expected, and consequently, so little eligible to his purpose. And here, if he had been met by a more interested glance, and a fuller sympathy, he would have gone on to speak of the disgraceful scene into which he had been betrayed by his uncle-the Major-and the obligation under which he felt himself placed thereby to remain in Berganton, at least long enough to efface any unfavourable impression which it might have caused. But, though his uncle Godfrey heard him patiently and courteously enough, there was so little of the hearty interest of kinship in his manner, that Bergan could not bring himself to open the subject. Not only was it unpleasant in itself, but it touched at many points on deep things of his nature, which instinctively refused to pour themselves into any but a friendly, sympathetic ear.

If he had known whence came the cloud between his relatives and himself, he would have spoken, as a matter of course, at whatever cost of feeling. But this explanation of the matter suggested itself to him, only to be inevitably rejected. Although it might serve to account for the coolness that had characterized his uncle's manner from the first, it seemed to throw no light whatever upon the difficult problem of the sudden change from cordiality to reserve, in Mrs. Bergan and Carice. A much more natural supposition appeared to be, that something in his own manner or conversation had unfortunately awakened prejudice or created dislike. For that, there was no remedy save in time. He could hope that, when his