"Not at all."
"It is one of the most beautiful of all, though not my favourite it has large double yellow flowers, shaped like the Provence very superb, but as wilful as any queen of them all."
"Which is your favourite, Mr. Carleton?"
"Not that which shows itself most splendid to the eye, but which offers fairest indications to the fancy."
Fleda looked a little wistfully, for there was a smile rather of the eye than of the lips, which said there was a hidden thought beneath.
"Don't you assign characters to your flowers?" said he, gravely.
"Always."
"That rosa sulphurea is a haughty high-bred beauty, that disdains even to show herself beautiful, unless she is pleased I love better what comes nearer home to the charities and wants of every-day life."
He had not answered her, Fleda knew; she thought of what he had said to Mrs. Evelyn about liking beauty, but not beauties.
"Then." said he, smiling again in that hidden way, "the head of the glen gave me the soil I needed for the Bourbons and French roses."