'What is she like?' asked a Maidenhair Fern, who from her position could get not even a glimpse of the new arrival.
'Is she elegant and refined?' inquired a Camellia languidly.
'Is she fair or dark?' questioned Tea-Rose, with a faint breath.
'It matters not to me what she is,' murmured Ice-Plant coldly.
'Where does she come from?' whispered Myrtle to her neighbour Cape Jasmine.
'From a hedgerow,' was the reply, but uttered so that all around her heard the answer.
'Only a Wild-flower!' was the general exclamation. 'What presumption to come amongst us!'
Then a chilling silence fell upon them all, except when they spoke to each other; but, after that unlucky explanation of her origin, it was as though they ignored her very existence—she was with them, still not of them.
And, strange to say, our little friend, who was so ready with words among her compeers, was completely silenced by these disdainful beauties, and, instead of replying, and holding, or rather maintaining, her position there, she shrank, as it were, abashed and ashamed of her lowly origin.
Was this the triumphant reception she had expected? Where was the homage her beauty was supposed to exact, and where the admiration of her manners and elegance generally? Ah me! she was only a little wayside blossom after all, pretty, it is true, and suited to the quiet hedgerow, but without the merits or the talents to raise her to a higher place. Better far the humble friends, the lowly mossy bank where she had grown in peace and rest (save for her own unquiet ambition), than the grandeur and contempt which now were hers.