A Leaf in the Storm Author:Ouida Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A PROVENCE ROSE. I Was a Provence rose. A little slender rose, with leaves of shining green and blossoms of purest white—a little fragile thing, but fair, ... more »they said, growing in the casement in a chamber in a street. I remember my birth-country well. A great wild garden, where roses grew together by millions and tens of millions, all tossing our bright heads in the light of a southern sun on the edge of an old, old city—old as Rome—whose ruins were clothed with the wild fig-tree, and the scarlet blossom of the climbing creepers growing tall and free in our glad air of France. I remember how the ruined aqueduct went like a dark shadow straight across the plains; how the green and golden lizards crept in and out and about amongst the grasses; how the cicala sang her song in the moist, sultry eves; how the women from the wells came trooping by, stately as monarchs, with their water-jars upon their heads; how the hot hush of the burning noons would fall, and all thingsdroop and sleep except ourselves; how swift amongst us would dart the little blue-winged birds, and hide their heads in our white breasts and drink from our hearts the dew, and then hover above us in their gratitude, with sweet faint music of their wings, till sunset came. I remember— But what is the usel I am only a rose; a thing born for a day, to bloom and be gathered, and die. So you say: you must know. God gave you all created things for your pleasure and use. So you say. There my birth was; there I lived—in the wide south, with its strong, quivering light, its radiant skieSj its purple plains, its fruits of gourd and vine. I was young; I was happy; I lived: it was enough. One day a rough hand tore me from my parent stem and took me, bleeding and drooping, from my birth-place, with a thousand oth...« less