IO PROSERPINA. 



I then try the next word in my specimen page 

 of Curtis ; but there is no ' Phalangium ' at all in 

 Loudon's index. And now I have neither time nor 

 mind for more search, but will give, in due place, 

 such account as I can of my own dwarf branched 

 lily, which I shall call St. Bruno's, as well as this 

 Liliastrum — no offence to the saint, I hope. For it 

 grows very gloriously on the limestones of Savoy, 

 presumably, therefore, at the Grande Chartreuse ; 

 though I did not notice it there, and made a 

 very unmonkish use of it when I gathered it last : 

 — There was a pretty young English lady at the 

 table-d'hote, in the Hotel du Mont Blanc at St. 

 Martin's,* and I wanted to get speech of her, and 

 didn't know how. So all I could think of was to go 

 half-way up the Aiguille de Varens, to gather St. 

 Bruno's lilies ; and I made a great cluster of them, 

 and put wild roses all round them as I came 

 down. I never saw anything so lovely; and I 

 thought to present this to her before dinner, — but 

 when I got down, she had gone away to Chamouni. 

 My Fors always treated me like that, in affairs of 

 the heart. 



I had begun my studies of Alpine botany just 

 eighteen years before, in 1842, by making a care- 

 ful drawing of wood-sorrel at Chamouni ; and 



• It was in the year i860, in June. 



