102 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



them. The little pale yellow flowers, 

 taken singly, may seem rather insignificant, 

 yet there is something moving almost, in 

 their religious attention to the hour which 

 unwritten laws have determined ; for even 

 when gathered and kept in water in the 

 house, at a distance from the windows, 

 they shut up just the same, punctual to 

 a minute. Lovely little purple Linaria 

 reticulata (aureo-purpurea) scatters itself, 

 self-sown, about the ledges, with the sweet 

 sad-coloured night stock ; and I am afraid 

 we tread heavier than need be upon the 

 camomile, spread flatly- on the stony walk, 

 to make it give out all its aroma. The 

 small campanula pulla's deep purple bells, 

 nod in crevices near edelweiss clothed in 

 grey cottony bloom. It is curious to see the 

 horror which an English dweller in Switzer- 

 land feels for this throned queen of alpine 

 flowers ! That edelweiss, a name we pro- 

 nounce almost with reverence, should 

 ever be called ( a cockney flower/ seems 

 almost past belief. Yet so it is, and I am 

 sorry, for there had been a certain pride 

 when I thought our plants were finer on 



