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"r THESE THREE." 79 about the place; quite as old, in fact, in proportion. The thatch was full of broken-in holes on one side, and within .was loaded with cobwebs; but as it had nothing to protect but rubbish, that mattered but little. Its contents, besides the yellow rose, were the cracked tea-box, some fragments of hampers, a mouldy piece of matting, one or two worm-eaten beams of wood, and here and there potsherds and dried earth. Now and then, indeed, the gardener would slip in a few flowerpots in which tulips, crocuses, or other bulbs had died down, to wait till he could attend to them," as he said of the rose. As he always said, in fact; meaning that he intended, some day, to empty them, stow away the bulbs, and put in fresh soil, and plants fit for the season. But that day of being ''attended to" seldom came. At any rate the pots were generally broken, and the bulbs decayed or lost before it arrived, which was nobody's fault, of course; only an unfortunate accident. And this was what happened to the yellow rosepot. Days and months went on (I do not care to say how many), and at last it got a blow on its