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ROMANCE.

ROSE AND ROSELLA.

I.

IN the King's garden were all manner of strange and beautiful plants. One might wander over it, and fancy he had visited all quarters of the globe, for there was nothing so rare but the Gardener would obtain it, and give it, if need be, a house all to itself in the great garden; and not content with having what he found, he was perpetually seeking to produce some new kind of flower, which one would search the world through in vain to find elsewhere. Everything was wonderfully contrived, everything was under the most perfect care; and in the palace, when the guests were tired of dancing and feasting, they would say, Come, let us go into the garden, and see what new thing the Gardener has."

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The Gardener himself was there, all day long, walking about the paths, dressed in a flowing, flowered gown, with a pruning-knife in his hand, looking so sharply at each plant, as he

went by, that one could easily see it would fare hard with them if they did not mind him. The guests would follow after and look at the plants he stopped before, and smell, and shut one eye, and look grave, but they never dared pluck a single bud. The King said openly that he cared nothing for flowers after they were gathered, and so he never plucked any, though of course he could, for it was his garden.

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Now there was in the garden one plant which was reckoned above all the rest in value. It had a house over its head, and was watched by the Gardener more closely than any other. Thither his feet always turned when he took his tour; and the guests, those who were wise, would look at each other and say, "Well, shall we go and look at the Rosella?" The King even, would inquire in the morning how the Rosella fared - the mock Rosella, he would sometimes explain good-naturedly, looking at the Princess, but that was when the Gardener was not there, and the King was familiar.

The Rosella was a rose, a rose so wonderful that there was not another in the kingdom, and so not another in the whole world, that could for a moment be compared with it. The

Gardener had therefore given it the name of the Princess Rosella, the only one in the royal family beside the King and Queen. The Princess Rosella was as peerless among women as the flower Rosella was among roses, and a decree had gone forth that no one in the kingdom should bear that name, and that it should not be bestowed upon any flower or bird, so that it passed into proverb-Worthy to bear the name of Rosella.

The King and Queen had selected from the neighboring princes, one of high renown and great possessions, whom they were willing to accept as the Princess's suitor, and the day was at hand when the ceremony of betrothal was to take place. Rosella, indeed, had never beheld the Prince, but she had heard for months of the Prince's famous horses, of his chariot, of his buglers, and of the magnificent palace to which he would one day conduct her, where she would rule the court. The King had a fancy that the betrothal should take place on the day when the consummate flower of the Rose should unfold its petals; it was to be worn by the Princess, and the world should then behold such splendor of beauty as never before was known, when the Princess Rosella, loveliest of the lovely, should appear before

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