Her grave innocent look forbade me to smile; yet it was not easy to preserve my gravity. I felt like a big boy lectured by some pretty little girl. She stood looking pensively at her foot, which she waved to and fro on the heel; then exclaimed, "I am going now." I had no wish to part with her. "Pray don't go yet. We have not been long together." "No, not very long. But taste is refined by abstinence." "Yes, but this sort of refinement is fretting. Your company is like that sweet wine, mentioned by a Persian poet, of which the more you drank the thirstier you became." "Oh! here comes the gardener with my bouquet!" she cried. The man presented it to her, cap in hand. "Thank you, thank you," she exclaimed, inclining her sweet face over the flowers. And when the man had withdrawn, she drew close to me, and pointing with a white finger to the bouquet, said: "Have you ever imagined what shapes and expressions the spirits of flowers take? The spirit of the lily would be a languid floating shape, with meek eyes and hands crossed on her bosom: but of course very, very small--smaller than the fairies. The violet would be a little baby boy with round blue eyes and a wee red mouth. The rose would be a young girl with a rich complexion. Her beautiful limbs would be tinted with a delicate pink like the shadow of the red rose in water. She would be haughty, with a glowing eye; and her hair would be bound by a circle of gold." "And what flower," I asked, "should, at its death, take the form of a woman exquisitely modelled, with black eyes melting from one sweet expression into another, sometimes startled, sometimes pleading, always luminous with bright but tender alternations of thought"---- "I see," she interrupted gravely; "you agree with me; you believe in the resurrection of the flowers." "I think you could make me believe in anything." She uttered a laugh; its abruptness made it discordant. "Good-bye," she exclaimed, "I will come and see your flowers again some day." "May I not show you over my house?" "What is there to be seen?" "Come and judge." I held the door open; she paused, entered, and returned. "I'll not look over your house to-day. You have had enough of my company. You may walk with me to the gate." She moved away, I followed her. "How long do you think my bouquet will last, Mr. Thorburn?" "Some days." "I wonder that people who like one another should make presents of flowers. When a young man presents a bouquet to the girl he is in love with, do either of them think that the gift exactly typifies their passion--all human passion--which is bright to-day and withered to-morrow?" "They would hardly think this. I can understand love seeking for expression in the most lovely and fragrant symbols the world has to offer. But the real truth is, the majority of lovers don't think at all. They imitate. They give what others give."