are currunt.'"

"I am glad to see," said Bernard, casting an admiring glance at
Virginia, "that this new soil you speak of, Colonel Temple, is so
favourably adapted to the growth of the fairest flowers."

"Oh, you must be jesting, Mr. Bernard," said the old lady, "for although
I am always begging Virginia to pay more attention to the garden, there
are scarcely any flowers there worth speaking of, except a few roses
that I planted with my own hands, and a bed of violets."

"You mistake me, my dear madam," returned Bernard, still gazing on
Virginia with an affectation of rapture, "the roses to which I refer
bloom on fair young cheeks, and the violets shed their sweetness in the
depths of those blue eyes."

"Oh, you are at your poetry, are you?" said the old lady.

"Not if poetry extends her sway only over the realm of fiction," said
Bernard, laying his hand upon his heart.

"Indeed, Mr. Bernard," said Virginia, not displeased at flattery, which
however gross it may appear to modern ears, was common with young
cavaliers in former days, and relished by the fair damsels, "I have been
taught that flowers flourish far better in the cultivated parterre, than
in the wild woods. I doubt not that, like Orlando, you are but playing
off upon a stranger the sentiments, which, in reality, you reserve for
some faithful Rosalind whom you have left in England."

"You now surprise me, indeed," returned Bernard, "for do you know that
among all the ladies that grace English society, there are but few who
ever heard of Rosalind or her Orlando, and know as little of the forest
of Ardennes as of your own wild forests in Virginia."

"I have heard," said the Colonel, "that old Will Shakspeare and his
cotemporaries--peers he has none--have been thrown aside for more modern
writers, and I fear that England has gained nothing by the exchange. Who
is now your prince of song?"

"There is a newly risen wit and poet, John Dryden by name, who seems to
bear the palm undisputed. Waller is old now, and though he still writes,
yet he has lost much of his popularity by his former defection from the
cause of loyalty."

"Well, for my part, give me old wine, old friends and old poets," said
the Colonel. "I confess I like a bard to be consecrated by the united
plaudits of two or three generations, before I can give him my ready
admiration."

"I should think your acquaintance with Horace would have taught you the
fallacy of that taste," said Bernard.