*

Call it an affectation, if you will, but I
never take a flower from its home without
a slight twinge of pain. I _know_ it
suffers! However, I have no scruples in
accepting flowers after they are plucked
by others. So pray do not hesitate
about sending me that superb bouquet,
which you intended to send me _to-morrow_!
Have you never observed the
brutal habit which 'some persons'
have, of recklessly attacking shrubs
and flowers, as though they were rank
weeds (or secessionists), and, without
in the least enjoying their spoils, tossing
their quivering, trembling victims
aside, before they are dead or even
withered? Such are not worthy of
flowers, excepting French flowers,
which are not supposed to suffer. Oh,
my countrywomen! would that they
_did_ suffer a little from our neglect.

Do you know who Lacoontola is?
I have made her acquaintance this
summer, and find it one of the compensations
for passing the summer in
town.

She is to be found at the City
Library--'Lacoontola, or, The Fatal
Ring,' translated from the Sanscrit.
Go there for her, I pray you, and you
will admire with me the exquisite description
of her tenderness to these
'flower people,' as Mrs. Mann calls them.

But, pardon! You who belong to the
'highest orders' must be already intimate
with Mlle. Lacoontola, for she is
highly connected: her papa was a king
(quite equal in position to Mr. Abe
Lincoln); her mamma, I regret to
state, though a very charming person,
was an actress or goddess, or something
in that line. Lacoontola, however, in
spite of her papa's indiscretion, married
a prince, and was, in fact, perfectly
genteel and quite religious. Before
her marriage, she appears to have
'lived in the woods' the year round;
her wardrobe being 'turu-lural.' She
used to wear the 'dearest' little zouave
of the 'tender bark' of the 'Aurora
tree.'

'Rich and rare were the gems she wore,'

for her bracelets were the 'long perfumed stems of the waterlilies!' and
in her hair the lotus flower, in place of a lace _barbe_!

There is a very beautiful description of Lacoontola's love and tender
treatment of all the flowers and shrubs--her companions--and of all
_dumb_ animals. (_On dit_ that the prince was henpecked by _Mrs._ L.!)

This wild girl had a human love for the forest flowers;