CHAPTER XIV. 



THE PURPLE CROCUS. 



To those who admit — and who can deny it ? — that 

 flowers are a special and most unmerited gift to 

 brighten the path which man's transgressions have 

 darkened with sadness, and strewn with thorns, it 

 is a touching circumstance that, be the seasons 

 what they may, there is no month in the twelve 

 without its attendant blossoms. If the human eye 

 possessed a micoscropic power, what a spectacle 

 of beauty would burst upon it, and that too in 

 wintry time, among the family of mosses alone ! 

 But such not being the extent of the visual organ 

 entrusted to us, we are not left to go groping about 

 with glasses. Enough is given to common ken to 

 prompt a song of praise, "Wonderful are thy 

 works, Lord God Almighty !" 



It is a peculiar feature in this part of those won- 

 derful works, that, although we lack not tall shrubs, 

 even trees, that win the upturned eye to 'explore 

 the abundance of their beautiful tints, still the far 



