Walking in the garden in the cool of the July evening, I was struck
afresh by the beauty of that climbing rose we call Dorothy Perkins, and
by her absolute inability to make a mistake. There are in this garden
several of these ramblers, all heritages from an earlier tenant and all
very skilfully placed: one over an arch, one around a window, and three
or four clambering up fir posts on which the stumps of boughs remain;
and in every case the rose is flowering more freely than ever before,
and has arranged its blossoms, leaves, and branches with an exquisite
and impeccable taste. Always lovely, Dorothy Perkins is never so lovely
as in the evening, just after the sun has gone, when the green takes on
a new sobriety against which her gay and tender pink is gayer and more
tender. "Pretty little Dolly Perkins!" I said to myself involuntarily,
and instantly, by the law of association--which, I sometimes fondly
suppose, is more powerful with me than with many people--I began to
think of another evening, twenty and more years ago, when for the first
time I heard the most dainty of English comic songs sung as it should
be, with the first words of the chorus accentuated like hammer blows in
unison: