In she went. It was certainly a tight fit, as the gown often is,
and Rosa felt nipped, strained, bruised, suffocated. But an old
proverb has settled long ago that pride feels no pain, and perhaps
the more foolish the pride the less is the pain that is felt--for
the moment.

They set her well into the vase, putting green moss over her
roots, and then they stretched her branches out over a gilded
trelliswork at the back of the vase. 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