Brewer's: Dorothea

(St.), represented with a rose-branch in her hand, a wreath of roses on her head, and roses with fruit by her side; sometimes with an angel carrying a basket with three apples and three roses. The legend is that Theophilus, the judge's secretary, scoffingly said to her, as she was going to execution, “Send me some fruit and roses, Dorothea, when you get to Paradise.” Immediately after her execution, while Theophilus was at dinner with a party of companions, a young angel brought to him a basket of apples and roses, saying, “From Dorothea, in Paradise,” and vanished. Theophilus, of course, was a convert from that moment.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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