Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/194

 France. Her voice was very melodious; she had a silver cross on her bosom; and though her face was pale, it had health.

She was my friend, I felt sure. Yes, even when she held me and pierced me with steel, and murmured over me,—

"They say roses are so hard to rear thus, and you are such a little thing; but do grow to a tree and live with me. Surely you can, if you try."

She had wounded me sharply and thrust me into a tomb of baked red clay filled with black and heavy mould. But I knew that I was pierced to the heart that I might—though only a little offshoot gathered to die in a day—strike root of my own and be strong, and carry a crown of fresh blossoms.

For she but dealt with me as your world deals with you, when your heart aches and your brain burns, and Fate stabs you, and says in your ear, "O fool! to be great you must suffer."

You to your fate are thankless, being human; but I, a rose, was not.

I tried to feel not utterly wretched in that little dull clay cell: I tried to forget my sweet glad southern birth-place, and not to sicken and swoon in the noxious gases of the city air.

I did my best not to shudder in the vapour of the stove, and not to grow pale in the clammy heats