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. 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