Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 101.djvu/383

Rh (the vow of the shipwrecked), while he waited for the miracle that was to liberate them from that accursed place. But miracle there was none. In vain they waited—good angels are not always ready to become the servants of the creatures of earth.

Their guardian angels essayed, nevertheless, to win for the poor, exiled flowers a restoration to their native woods, but no voice made answer to their supplication—no gracious assent was vouchsafed.

Since that time it has happened that wood-flowers are often found in gardens, and, as if the malediction of heaven still pursued their unfortunate race, the poor things never grow either taller or more beautiful; they are still, and will always remain, what they were at the moment they quitted their woods, and no cultivation can ever succeed in changing them. This is the judgment pronounced against them for their vanity and ambition, and thus it was that the sins which ruined the first of human race, ruined also those wild flowers of the wood.

After tying up my bouquet in this fashion, I perceive that a heartsease (with a face like a full moon), peeping out from between a tuberose and a tiger lily, was about to put in a protest, and vindicate, probably, the wonders of cultivation—and that a double violet, ruffling with spite, was preparing to second the same, but knowing the conceit and perverted taste of these poor toys of the gardener, I discreetly put my fingers to my ears and left them to console each other.

" did I marry—why, oh why?"

I ask myself with many a sigh;

A slave I've made myself for life

Only to gain the name of—wife!

There seemed such magic in that sound—

But small enchantment have I found;

Alas! the poet's words are true—

"'Tis distance lends to the view."

Just fresh from school when I came out,

I deemed at every ball or rout

Admirers would around me gather,

Or suitors, I should call them rather.

I was then only turned eighteen,

And my thoughts vibrated between

Love in a cottage with some youth,

A mixture of romance and truth,

Whose Byron brow and D'Orsay air

Should make me a much envied fair.

Or if I had not better make

A brilliant match, and really take

A coronet, though perhaps older

And somewhat plain might be its holder.

Some two, three years had quickly gone,

And still I flirted gaily on—

But yet, no coronet was proffered,

No charming swain his cottage offered;

And then the thought occurred to me,

Of Guardsman, or perhaps M.P.

Thrice at the altar did I stand—

But never with ungloved left hand,

There to receive the plain gold ring

Bridegrooms in waistcoat-pockets bring.

Our servants never had to mount

White favours upon my account

Most of my schoolfellows were marrying,

And wondered for what I was tarrying—

I could have told, but pride forbade—

I was too hard to please they said,

Another season, and another

Thus passed away: and now my mother

Looked sometimes rueful, sometimes cross.

But I was never at a loss