But
she had great consolations and triumphs, and began to believe
that, let them say what they chose, she had never been a common
garden wall rose. The ladies of the house came in and praised her
to the skies; the children ran up to her and clapped their hands
and shouted for joy at her beauty; a wonderful big green bird came
in and hopped before her, cocked his head on one side, and said to
her, "Pretty Poll! oh, SUCH a pretty Poll!"
"Even the birds adore me here!" she thought, not dreaming he was
only talking of himself; for when you are as vain as was this poor
dear Rosa, creation is pervaded with your own perfections, and
even when other people say only "Poll!" you feel sure they are
saying "You!" or they ought to be if they are not.
So there she stood in her grand Sevres pot, and she was ready to
cry with the poet, "The world may end tonight!" Alas! it was not
the world which was to end. Let me hasten to close this true
heart-rending history.
There was a great dinner as the sun began to set, and the mistress
of the house came in on the arm of the great foreign prince; and
what did the foreign prince do but look up at Rosa, straight up at
her, and over the heads of the azaleas, and say to his hostess:
"What a beautiful rose you have there! A Niphetos, is it not?"
And her mistress, who had known her long as simple Rosa Damascena,
answered, "Yes, sir; it is a Niphetos.
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