It will be very interesting to see how the new Roses turn out. A good many were ordered on the strength of the catalogue description, from three different rose growers. Hybrid Perpetuals do not do with us; neither do pure Teas stand our cold, otherwise we should riot in “Lady Hillingdon.”
“You never can go wrong with a Viscountess,” said his gardener to a friend of ours.
He was a man of lightning wit—as all lovers of “Savoy” operas know.
“That is a very interesting statement of yours,” he said in that brief, unsmiling manner that added zest to his quaintness. “I have been given to understand the contrary.”
We can go wrong with a Viscountess, unfortunately, and do. As we have said, Hybrid Perpetuals do not behave well with us, except, perhaps, that model of excellence, Ulrich Brunner.—Morals are a question of climate even with roses.
Loki’s Ma-Ma ‹to be discursive—and we are afraid that this chronicle is nothing if not discursive› was a great favourite with this genius of mirth above mentioned, who made the world ring with honest laughter and whose heroic death brought many tears, at least to Villino Loki. He used to call her “his little Lemur” because she had a way of clinging to her mother, in her first debutante days.
Never was there a man so tender-hearted. On his estate no wild thing was to be robbed of its life: not even a rabbit. Loki’s Grandmother used to be a little timid in his company, because of this gift of swift humour. She never felt able to meet him on his own ground—except once when in a windy June he told her that he had begun to take his daily swim in the lake, and she shuddered at the thought.
“Cold!” he cried, “not a bit of it! Delightful! You shall take a dip with me when next you come to us.”
“No,” she retorted—and it was the only time in all their pleasant intercourse that she was ever brave enough to make a pass with him—“No, I had rather get into hot water with you.”
Alas, alas! That lake! We felt the menace of it even then. It was there, trying to save another, he found his death.