Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much
surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who ever
expected, before entering that garden, to find himself pricked and
lacerated by an insidious exotical "dear," which he had been taught to
believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender and
sensitive shrubs which poets appropriate to Venus? Nevertheless Parson
Dale, being a patient man, and a pattern to all husbands, would have
found no fault with his garden, though there had not been a single
specimen of "dear,"--whether the dear /humilis/ or the dear /superba/;
the dear /pallida, rubra/, or /nigra/; the dear /suavis/ or the dear
/horrida/,--no, not a single "dear" in the whole horticulture of
matrimony, which Mrs. Dale had not brought to perfection. But this was
far from being the case; Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was
unaware of the modern improvements, in variety of colour and sharpness of
prickle, which have rewarded the persevering skill of our female
florists.




CHAPTER IX.

In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.
Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned
back to the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the tall,
outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves of
the green corn.

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his