"Bourbons?" said Fleda.
"Those are exceeding fine a hybrid between the Chinese and the rose-à-quatre-saisons I have not confined them all to the head of the glen; many of them are in richer soil, grafted on standards."
"I like standard roses," said Fleda, "better than any."
"Not better than climbers?"
"Better than any climbers I ever saw except the banksia."
"There is hardly a more elegant variety than that, though it is not strictly a climber; and, indeed, when I spoke, I was thinking as much of the training roses. Many of the noisettes are very fine. But I have the climbers all over in some parts nothing else, where the wood closes in upon the path there the evergreen roses or the Ayrshire, cover the ground under the trees, or are trained up the trunks, and allowed to find their own way through the branches down again the multiflora in the same manner. I have made the boursault cover some unsightly rocks that were in my way. Then in wider parts of the glade, nearer home, are your favourite standards the damask, and Provence, and moss, which, you know, are varieties of the centifolia, and the noisette standards some of them are very fine, and the Chinese roses, and countless hybrids and varieties of all these, with many Bourbons; and your beautiful American yellow rose, and the Austrian briar and eglantine, and the Scotch, and white and dog roses, in their innumerable varieties, change admirably well with the others, and relieve the eye very happily."
"Relieve the eye!" said Fleda; "my imagination wants relieving! Isn't there I have a fancy that there is a view of the sea from some parts of that walk, Mr. Carleton?"
"Yes you have a good memory," said he, smiling. "On one side the wood is rather dense, and in some parts of the other side; but elsewhere the trees are thinned off towards the south- west, and in one or two points the descent of the ground and some cutting have given free access to the air and free range to the eye, bounded only by the sea-line in the distance; if, indeed, that can be said to bound anything."
"I haven't seen it since I was a child," said Fleda. "And for how long a time in the year is this literally a garden of roses, Mr. Carleton?"
"The perpetual roses are in bloom for eight months the damask and the Chinese, and some of their varieties; the Provence roses are in blossom all the summer."