Well, you _are_ pretty--_very_ pretty; but I care not for you as for your plainer stepsister, the 'sweet-scented Verbena.' She has a pale, sad face; but she has a _soul_, which you have not, poor things! for perfume is the soul of 'flower people.' But, who wants gold? Lives there a man with purse so full who does _not_ want it? Well, then, snatch that heap of sunshine, that dazzling Coreopsis, and be off before the policeman turns into this path. Ah, ye Daylilies! You break my heart with your moonlight faces. Standing apart from the world-flowers, like novices in their white veils, who offer the incense of their beauty to Heaven--oh! give a little of your perfume to a poor un-otto-of-rosed mortal--breathe on me, and I can laugh at the costly 'Wood Violet,' 'Eglantine,' and 'Rose,' with which Harris & Chapman scent their patronesses--to be dollared in return! Daylilies, your perfume is too subtle, too vague, to be coined or 'cabined, cribbed, confined' in scent bottles. Ah! the flowering Mosses; they seem to be having one eternal picnic with the Myrtles and Verbenas, playing forever that dear-to-children game of 'Tag'! Some are arrayed in Solferino velvets, rather heavy for this warm day! Prettier these, in soft rose-colored robes, and this, in a 'Oh! call me fair, not pale'-- well, _almost_ pale robe, the very climax of delicacy: the faintest thought of rose color alone prevents one from calling it lily-white. I am reminded of you, O flower-named friend! Vision of loveliness! which has in a few never-to-be-forgotten days oasised my Sahara life. Now I have reached the pond--_my_ Lake George! It is fresh and breezy this morning, after last night's thunder-shower, and the mimic waves are impatiently breaking over the thus-far-shalt-thou-go stone. I cannot blame them for rushing over that green sward to give a morning kiss to the blushing 'Forget-me-nots,' and just say to them, 'Remember _me_!' Yes; I have a few crumbs of time left to sit in the rustic arbor and give one lingering look behind, that I may carry a picture with me when I go to my work. How fortunate it is for one that these flowers are Londoners in their habits, and pass August in the city! I can go to their receptions daily, if I choose; they are always at home to the poorest, the most unfashionable; they keep no 'visiting book' in their hall. Hark! the bell rings seven o'clock. There is a 'knocking at the gate' of my fairy land; it warns me that I must be on my Washington-street way, to earn my bread. _Bien!_ my first meal of to-day has been satisfactory. Heaven hath sent me all manner of manna for breakfast--and for lunch? a banana. Yes; on my way 'down town' I shall pass the Studio Building, where the B.'s live; I will buy one of them, but shall also steal--many glances at the Hamburg grapes, those peachiest of peaches, bombastic blackberries, and, O Pomona! _such_ pears.