"Please go away!" begged one. "Can't you see
you're frightening us out of a week's growth?"
"Go away!" echoed Betsy. "Why, we've no place to
go. We've just been wrecked."
"Wrecked?" asked the Roses in a surprised
chorus.
"Yes; we were on a big ship and the storm came
and wrecked it," explained the girl. "But Hank and
I caught hold of a raft and floated ashore to this
place, and--we're tired and hungry. What country
is this, please?"
"This is the Rose Kingdom," replied the Moss
Rose, haughtily, "and it is devoted to the culture
of the rarest and fairest Roses grown."
"I believe it," said Betsy, admiring the pretty
blossoms.
"But only Roses are allowed here," continued a
delicate Tea Rose, bending her brows in a frown;
"therefore you must go away before the Royal
Gardener finds you and casts you back into the
sea."
"Oh! Is there a Royal Gardener, then?" inquired
Betsy.
"To be sure."
"And is he a Rose, also?"
"Of course not; he's a man--a wonderful man,"
was the reply.
"Well, I'm not afraid of a man," declared the
girl, much relieved, and even as she spoke the
Royal Gardener popped into the greenhouse--a
spading fork in one hand and a watering pot in the
other.
He was a funny little man, dressed in a rose-
colored costume, with ribbons at his knees and
elbows, and a bunch of ribbons in his hair. His
eyes were small and twinkling, his nose sharp and
his face puckered and deeply lined.
"O-ho!" he exclaimed, astonished to find
strangers in his greenhouse, and when Hank gave a
loud bray the Gardener threw the watering pot over
the mule's head and danced around with his fork,
in such agitation that presently he fell over the
handle of the implement and sprawled at full
length upon the ground.
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