The Watchman

THE WHITE JESSAMINE.

We are told that before it arrived in France, the jessamine sojourned in Italy, a Duke of Tuscany was its first possessor. Tormented by envy, this Duke wished to enjoy alone so charming a possession, and forbade his gardener to take away a single stalk, a single flower. The gardener would have been faithful had he never known love; but he prepared a bouquet for the birth-day of his mistress, and to make it a little more imposing and precious, added a branch of jessamine. The young girl to preserve the freshness of the flower, put it in the ground; the branch remained green all the year, and the following spring was covered with flowers; she profited by the instructions of her lover, and cultivated her jessamine, which multiplied itself under her tender care. She was poor, her lover not rich; a prudent mother refused to unite this poverty; but love had worked a miracle for them, and the girl profited by it; she sold her jessamines, and sold them so well, that she amassed a little treasure, with which she enriched her lover. The girls of Tuscany, to preserve the remembrance of the adventure, always wear a bouquet of jessamine on their marriage-day; and they have a saying, that a girl worthy to wear this bouquet, is rich enough to make the fortune of her husband.—Letters from Brussels.