oyage, and began to show a few days since
when restored to a congenial atmosphere. All our interest concentrates
in the unlovely things along the wall.

The habitual attendants at an auction-room are always somewhat of a
family party, but, as a rule, an ugly one. It is quite different with
the regular group of orchid-buyers. No black sheep there. A dispute is
the rarest of events, and when it happens everybody takes for granted
that the cause is a misunderstanding. The professional growers are men
of wealth, the amateurs men of standing at least. All know each other,
and a cheerful familiarity rules. We have a duke in person frequently,
who compares notes and asks a hint from the authorities around; some
clergymen; gentry of every rank; the recognized agents of great
cultivators, and, of course, the representatives of the large trading
firms. So narrow even yet is the circle of orchidaceans that almost all
the faces at a sale are recognized, and if one wish to learn the names,
somebody present can nearly always supply them. There is reason to hope
that this will not be the case much longer. As the mysteries and
superstitions environing the orchid are dispersed, our small and select
throng of buyers will be swamped, no doubt; and if a certain pleasing
feature of the business be lost, all who love the flower and their
fellow-men alike will cheerfully submit.

The talk is of orchids mostly, as these gentlemen stroll along the
tables, lifting a root and scrutinizing it with practised glance that
measures its vital strength in a second. But nurserymen take advantage
of the gathering to show any curious or striking flower they chance to
have at the moment. Mr. Bull's representative goes round, showing to one
and another the contents of a little box--a lovely bloom of
_Aristolochia elegans_, figured in dark red on white ground like a
sublime cretonne--and a new variety of Impatiens; he distributes the
latter presently, and gentlemen adorn their coats with the pale crimson
flower.

Excitement does not often run so high as in the times, which most of
those present can recall, when orchids common now were treasured by
millionaires. Steam, and the commercial enterprise it fosters, have so
multiplied our stocks, that shillings--or pence, often enough--represent
the guineas of twenty years back. There are many here, scarcely yet
grey, who could describe the scene when _Masdevallia Tovarensis_ first
covered the stages of an auctio