"Jolly little beggars," said George, with explanatory stick.
She liked the flowers best, but he did not, so he took her down to the pool below the rose garden, where the eager brook ran through a grating, making a little water prison in which solemn, portly personages might be seen moving.
"See 'em?" said George, pointing as usual.
"Yes," said Janet.
"That's a three-pounder."
"Yes."
That was all the stream said to them.
She lingered once more in the rose-garden when he would have drawn her onwards towards the ferrets, and George, willing to humour her, got out his knife and chose a rose for her. Has any woman really lived who has not stood once in silence in the June sunshine with her lover, and watched him pick for her a red rose which is not as other roses, a rose which understands? Amid all the world of roses, did the raiment of God touch just that one, as He walked in His garden in the cool of the evening? And did the Divine love imprisoned in it reach forth towards the human love of the two lovers, and blend them for a moment with itself?
"You are my rose," said George, and he put his arm round her, and drew her to him with a rough tenderness.