And very beautiful she
looked; and she was at the head of the room, and a huge mirror
down at the farther end opposite to her showed her own reflection.
She was in paradise!
"At last," she thought to herself, "at last they have done me
justice!"
The azaleas were all crowded round underneath her, like so many
kneeling courtiers, but they were not taken out of their pots;
they were only shrouded in moss. They had no Sevres vases. And
they had always thought so much of themselves and given themselves
such airs, for there is nothing so vain as an azalea,--except,
indeed, a camellia, which is the most conceited flower in the
world, though, to do it justice, it is also the most industrious,
for it is busy getting ready its next winter buds whilst the
summer is still hot and broad on the land, which is very wise and
prudent in it and much to be commended.
Well, there was Rosa Indica at the head of the room in the Sevres
vase, and very proud and triumphant she felt throned there, and
the azaleas, of course, were whispering enviously underneath her,
"Well, after all, she was only Rosa Damascena not so VERY long
ago."
Yes, THEY KNEW! What a pity it was! They knew she had once been
Rosa Damascena and never would wash it out of their minds--the
tiresome, spiteful, malignant creatures!
Even aloft in the vase, in all her glory, the rose could have shed
tears of mortification, and was ready to cry like Themistocles,
"Can nobody give us oblivion?"
Nobody could give that, for the azaleas, who were so irritated at
being below her, were not at all likely to hold their tongues.
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