'Rappacini's daughter' (one of Hawthorne's Mosses) was a morbid 'Lacoontola.' She loved her flowers,--'not wisely, but too well!' She became a sort of exterminatrix--a strychninus young person! From the poisonous _arsenic_ embraces of her garden loves, she acquired, you remember, her fatal, glowing beauty--beauty altogether 'too rich for use, for earth too dear,' since it consigned the 'party' ensnared by it to the silent tomb! 'Rappacini's daughter,' indeed! Lovely girl-woman, seated at yonder bay window (to be accurate, the 'Back Bay window'!), playing with your ten cherub children; your tropical 'midsummer-night's-dream' beauty recalls Beatrice (Hawthorne's Beatrice I mean). How many have _you_ slain, my love? And Madame Grundy echoes: 'Their name is legion!' 'A quick brunette, well moulded, falcon-eyed'! As in the description of Beatrice, one is reminded 'of all rich and intense colors'--the purple-black hair, the crimson cheek, the scarlet lips. And the eyes? ah! gazing into those wonderful eyes, one forgets the color they wear, in trying to interpret their language! 'Cleopatra!' who would not be an Antony for thee? _I would not!_ I have unconsciously interrupted a lady in her morning bath!--the 'stone lady' of the fountain. She seems to be looking for her Turkish towel, judging from her anxious expression! Rather a good-looking person--quite pretty, if only she would go to Summer street and purchase a black silk. Dress, I fancy, would improve 'her style of beauty.' Poor thing! it's rather a long walk to take, _a la_ 'Lacoontola'! I must lend her my waterproof, only she appears already to be water-proved! How she _must_ envy the coloring and the clothes of my beautiful dame of the window! But my hour is passing away! '_Resurgam_'--as the sun incorrectly remarked this morning--and go on my way, rejoicing to say 'bon jour' to all my dear flower friends. And first, the 'Asters'--they always were rich, you know, from 'John Jacob' down; but this summer, _malgre_ taxes and curtailment of incomes and go-comes, the family appear in unprecedented splendor. What gorgeous Organdies! all quilled in the fashion--but not by Madame Peinot: her cunning right hand, with all its cunning, ne'er quilled so exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias (what a family of sisters!), in their delicate _glaze_ silks (ratherish _decollete!_), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do they _not_ say? The Verbenas seem fairly delirious this morning, as though the consciousness of their own beauty made them run wildly from their beds into the paths, to say to the passers-by, with their bright little faces: 'See! am I not charming?'