The old-time Roses possess most fully this hidden power. Sweetest of all was the old Cabbage Rose--called by some the Provence Rose--for its perfume "to be chronicled and chronicled, and cut and chronicled, and all-to-be-praised." Its odor is perfection; it is the standard by which I compare all other fragrances. It is not too strong nor too cloying, as are some Rose scents; it is the idealization of that distinctive sweetness of the Rose family which other Roses have to some degree. The color of the Cabbage Rose is very warm and pleasing, a clear, happy pink, and the flower has a wholesome, open look; but it is not a beautiful Rose by florists' standards,--few of the old Roses are,--and it is rather awkward in growth. The Cabbage Rose is said to have been a favorite in ancient Rome. I wish it had a prettier name; it is certainly worthy one. The Hundred-leaved Rose was akin to the Cabbage Rose, and shared its delicious fragrance. In its rather irregular shape it resembled the present Duke of Sussex Rose. One of the rarest of old-time Roses in our gardens to-day is the red and white mottled York and Lancaster. It is as old as the sixteenth century. Shakespeare writes in the _Sonnets_:-- "The Roses fearfully in thorns did stand One blushing shame, another white despair. A third, nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both." They are what Chaucer loved, "sweitie roses red, brode, and open also." Roses of a broad, flat expanse when in full bloom; they have a cheerier, heartier, more gracious look than many of the new Roses that never open far from bud, that seem so pinched and narrow. What ineffable fragrance do they pour out from every wide-open flower, a fragrance that is the very spirit of the Oriental Attar of Roses; all the sensuous sweetness of the attar is gone, and only that which is purest and best remains. I believe, in thinking of it, that it equals the perfume of the Cabbage Rose, which, ere now, I have always placed first. This York and Lancaster Rose is the _Rosa mundi_,--the rose of the world. A fine plant is growing in Hawthorne's old home in Salem. [Illustration: Violets in Silver Double Coaster.]