Florry

“ Spolger loves—adores Florry. He wants to marry her, but finds out she won't have him because she loves another man. Chance, by means of the forgotten pill-box, throws in his way the means of injuring that other man. What is more natural? He takes advantage of the chance."
"Injuring a man doesn't mean killing him."
"Who said it did? Put it in this way. Spolger intended to merely injure him, but in making up the morphia pills he puts in too much of the drug, and kills Melstane without intending to do so." ”

“ Miss Florence—yes, I knew you would feel so, mother. Does it not make your head feel better to see such a beautiful flower? Now you will not look so longingly at the flowers in the market, for we have a rose that is handsomer than any of them. Why, it seems to me it is worth as much to us as our whole little garden used to be. Only see how many buds there are! ”

“ A band of loving little gardeners go daily forth from Fairy-Land, to tend and watch them, that no harm may befall the gentle spirits that dwell beneath their leaves. This is never known, for like all good it is unseen by mortal eyes, and unto only pure hearts like yours do we make known our secret. The humblest flower that grows is visited by our messengers, and often blooms in fragrant beauty unknown, unloved by all save Fairy friends, who seek to fill the spirits with all sweet and gentle virtues, that they may not be useless on the earth; for the noblest mortals stoop to learn of flowers. ”

“ Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose—the white Iris is mine—the Fleur-de-lys of France—the lily of Florence. Nothing can be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the whiteness of other flowers. ”

“ To name all the blushing subjects so fairly representing the rich and wide domain of Flora, would be far less easy of accomplishment, of enumeration, than to say that queen roses—the English rose—the delicate, the beautifully clothed lily—the crimson fuchsia—the acacia, and gorgeous tulip—the Victoria Regia, in all its stages of development, bud, blossom, flower,—were as the realities of stilly life, which seemed to say, in the expressive language of flowers—"put aside from us our glassy veils, remove our crystal shrines, that we may nod kisses to the wooing zephyrs." ”

“ I forsook human life for floral, and in my renouncing I gained much. In my garden there grew a single fragile flower, orchid-like in glory, but of a species quite different to any I had ever chanced upon before. ”

“ A curtain of pale green silk fell over the sash-door, and close behind it stood a garden-chair, overhung by the blossoming tendrils of a passion-flower. Florence sat down in the chair and her head drooped fainting to one hand. There was something in the scent of the various plants blossoming around that reminded her of that wedding-morning when the air was literally burthened with like fragrance. ”

“ The expression of the eyes was a rub of pastel from a master's thumb; the whole head, stamped with a sort of showy suffering, had gained a fineness from what she had passed through. Yes, Flora was settled for life--nothing could hurt her further. I foresaw the particular praise she would mostly incur--she would be invariably "interesting." She would charm with her pathos more even than she had charmed with her pleasure. For herself above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all change and ransomed from all doubt. ”

“ You don't call visiting old women and sickly children, and questioning a prim class of tidy girls in a school-room, seeing anything of society? Have you no neighbours in your own rank of life within ten miles round?"
"Not many," replied Flora; "but a few. There's the clergyman--you have seen him--good old Mr. Ward--"
"Oh yes, I have seen him,--the bald-headed little man, with such a benevolent look and patronising smile, that I quite expected him to pat me on the head and say, 'There's a good little dear!'"
"Naughty little dear, I should say," laughed Flora. ”

“ Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest blue known to garden flowers. Unless the sun shines fully on them they seem to swallow light; mingle with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canterbury bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, a fringe of spirea, or the slender Deutzia gracilis, more frequently seen in florists' windows than in the garden, [Pg 354] and a new meaning is given the blue flower; the black shadows disappear from its depth and sky reflections replace them. ”

“ Many of the people have brought flowers with them, and as the procession approaches they cast them loosely in the air, out of which they descend in a shower of many colours to carpet the way, along which Gloria must pass, with their bright and variegated bloom. ”

“ The flower must be considered as an embodied welcome to an insect affinity, and all sorts of courtesies prevail among them in the reception of their invited guests. The banquet awaits, but various singular ceremonies are enjoined between the cup and the lip, the stamens doing the hospitalities in time-honored forms of etiquette. Flora exacts no arbitrary customs. Each flower is a law unto itself. ”

“ Lying down on her rock, she told over with the rapture of a devotee the divine excellencies of Flora Le Pettit; her radiance, her swinging, shining curls, the wings that spread from her fair arms, the light that gleamed on her bright brow and in her glancing eyes, but it was not Flora, but Loveday, who danced before her mind's eye in white raiment, and held the sorrows of the South in her eyes and the joy of youth on her lips. Flora was the excuse for that new Loveday, as the beloved is ever the excuse for the raptures transmuting the lover. ”

“ Then into a cheerful place they went, where were many groups of flowers, among whose leaves sat the child Elves, and learned from their flower-books all that Fairy hands had written there. Some studied how to watch the tender buds, when to spread them to the sunlight, and when to shelter them from rain; how to guard the ripening seeds, and when to lay them in the warm earth or send them on the summer wind to far off hills and valleys, where other Fairy hands would tend and cherish them, till a sisterhood of happy flowers sprang up to beautify and gladden the lonely spot where they had fallen. ”

“ The mistress passed on to the queen of the garden, La Rosiere, fragrant beyond all other roses, its reflexed, claret-coloured petals soft and velvety, its leaves—when did a rose’s greenery fail to be its perfect complement?—tinged underneath with a faint blush of its own deep colour. ”

“ World-wide fame and a comfortable fortune await the florist who shall produce a variety of blue rose, tulip, hollyhock, or dahlia, or a yellow geranium or larkspur, which all persist in their fidelity to their particular color series. And yet nature gives us occasional exceptions which, however, only serve by their contrast to emphasize the universal law. ”

“ Flora, who was imaginative and poetical, had drawn in her mind so touching, a picture of the pale widow and her golden-haired cherubs, had rehearsed to herself so often the scene of the meeting, that she had worked herself into a state of eager impatience. Unable to settle steadily to anything, she fluttered from room to room, now altering the arrangement of the flowers with which she had adorned the widow's pretty boudoir, now bringing some elegant trifle of her own to add to the beauty of the effect. ”

“ To most people, and more particularly to most women, one of the chief uses or functions of a garden is to provide flowers to be cut for the decoration of rooms. But I hold that a flower cut from its plant and placed in a vase is as a scalp on the walls of a wigwam—a trophy showing how one more beautiful plant has been defeated and victimised by its powerful and tasteless owner. ”

“ Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone, and takes more notice of it than of all the green in the wood, and you, or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain ”

“ The florist may delight in this: the true lover of flowers never will. He who has taken lessons from nature, who has observed the real purpose and operation of flowers; how they flush forth from the brightness of the earth's being, as the melody rises up from among the moved strings of the instrument; how the wildness of their pale colors passes over her, like the evidence of a various emotion ”

“ No one here holds the mirrors, yet the head is bent and the eyes are turned as if some one stood by to catch the glance, and stretch a hand for the flowers; for whilst with her left Flora strives by an intricate and momentary play of the fingers, to keep fast the muslin that falls from her shoulder and the damask that slips from her form, with the other she presents a handful of roses, jessamines, and violets to an unseen lover. ”

“ All the lilies in the garden had done flowering, but these, more pure and more luxuriant, through shade and shelter, were then in their full perfection, and filled the air with their delightful fragrance. The children called them sister's lilies, because when she was a child she had planted them. We generally brought pieces of bread with us, to eat with our fruit, and the wilderness being our favorite retreat, we played there at all times in the day. ”

“ Even human Beauty, the Queen of all loveliness on earth, engages Flora as her handmaid at the toilet, in spite of the dictum of the poet of 'The Seasons,' that "Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most."
Flowers are hung in graceful festoons both in churches and in ball- rooms. They decorate the altar, the bride-bed, the cradle, and the bier. They grace festivals, and triumphs, and processions; and cast a glory on gala days; and are amongst the last sad honors we pay to the objects of our love. ”

“ And I cannot see any other use that flowers have. Do you know of any other use, cousin?"
"Oh, yes. Flowers have a more important use than merely giving delight to the senses. Without them, plants could not produce fruit and seed. You notice that the flower always comes before the fruit?"
"Oh, yes. But why is a flower needed? Why does not the fruit push itself directly out from the stem of a plant?" asked Agnes.
"Flowers are the most exquisitely delicate in their texture of all forms in the vegetable kingdom. Look at the petals of this one. Could any thing be softer or finer? ”

“ Flora's unfinished embroidery still remained in the frame, with the needle in the last stitch of a blue forget-me-not. Over the mirror was a cluster of blush-roses she had made. On the wall was a spray of sea-moss she had pressed and surrounded with a garland of small shells. By the door was a vine she had transplanted from the woods; and under a tree opposite was a turf seat where she used to sit sketching the cottage, and Tulee, and Thistle, and baskets of wild-flowers she had gathered. ”

“ But the sight of that glorious plant rising proudly from amidst the greenery of its forest setting will be for us more than any picture. And its being "wild" has the same fascination for us that a flower that is "wild," and not garden grown, has for a child. In a florist's shop we may see lilies even more beautiful than this, but the enjoyment we get from seeing the florist's production bears no comparison whatever with the enjoyment we get from seeing this lily in a distant Himalayan forest where not so many white men ever go. We often have experiences which perceptibly age us. ”

“ The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who cross the Common. ”

“ The love of flowers is a passion among all classes of the people, and their cultivation as a business by experienced individuals gives profitable employment to many florists, whose grounds are pictures of accumulated beauty, fragrance, and variety of hues. There is as true harmony to the eye in such blendings as there is to the ear in perfect music. The reader may be sure that where the children of Flora so much abound, bright tinted humming-birds do much more abound, dainty little living feathered gems, rivaling rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. ”

“ But as easily could that roaring cataract break the arch of the rainbow that glistens at its foot, as the torrent of eloquence to which she listened warp the settled judgment of the parent. She needed not to be persuaded that Sir Amery loved--she believed Flora to be worthy of the warmest affection which ever glowed in the heart of man; but no sentence which he uttered altered her conviction that he was one who, however gifted with earthly wisdom, was yet a stranger to the knowledge which alone can make man wise unto salvation. ”

“ I said that nothing grew on the trellises by the poplars but crimson roses, but I was not quite right, for in many places the wild flowers had crept into the garden from without; lush green briony, with green-white blossoms, that grows p. 5so fast, one could almost think that we see it grow, and deadly nightshade, La bella donna, O! so beautiful; red berry, and purple, yellow-spiked flower, and deadly, cruel-looking, dark green leaf, all growing together in the glorious days of early autumn. ”