“The rose,” said I, “has always been the poet’s darling theme. The impassioned lyre of Sappho has breathed upon its leaves. Anacreon has wooed it in the happiest effusions of his genius; and poesy seems to have exhausted her powers in celebrating the charms of the most beautiful and transient of flowers. “Among its modern panegyrists, few have been more happily successful than Monsieur de Barnard, in that charming little ode beginning: “Tendre fruits des pleurs d’aurore, Objets des baisers du zephyrs, Reine de l’empire de Flore, Hate toi d’epanoir.” “O! I beseech you go on,” exclaimed Glor-vina; and at her request, I finished the poem. “Beautiful, beautiful!” said she, with enthusiasm. “O! there is a certain delicacy of genius in elegant trifles of this description, which I think the French possess almost exclusively: it is a language formed almost by its very construction _a’eterniser la bagatelle_, and to clothe the fairy effusions of fancy in the most appropriate drapery. “I thank you for this beautiful ode; the rose was always my idol flower; in all its different stages of existence, it speaks a language my heart understands; from its young bud’s first crimson glow, to the last sickly blush of its faded blossom. It is the flower of sentiment in all its sweet transitions; it breathes a moral, and seems to preserve an undecaying soul in that fragrant essence which still survives the bloom and symmetry of the fragile form which every beam too ardent, every gale too chill, injures and destroys.” “And is there,” said I, “no parallel in the moral world for this lovely offspring of the natural?”---- Glorvina raised her humid eyes to mine, and I read the parallel there. “I vow,” said the priest, with affected pettishness, “I am half tempted to fling away my violet, since this _idol_ flower has been decreed to Mr. Mortimer; and to revenge myself, I will show him your ode on the rose.” At these words, he took out his pocket-book, laughing at his gratified vengeance, while Glorvina coaxed, blushed, and threatened; until snatching the book out of his hand, as he was endeavouring to put it into mine, away she flew like lightning, laughing heartily at her triumph, in all the exility and playfulness of a youthful spirit. “What a _Hebe!_” said I, as she kissed her hand to us in her airy flight. “Yes,” said he, “she at least illustrates the possibility of a woman uniting in her character the extremes of intelligence and simplicity: you see, with all her information and talent, she is a mere child.”