84 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



and handsomer than the one before it, till 

 the wliite stems made a handful. 



" Oh," said a man on the piazza, as I re- 

 turned to the hotel, " I see you have nose- 

 bleed." I was putting my hand to my 

 pocket, wondering why I should have been 

 taken so childishly, when it came over me 

 what he meant. He was looking at the 

 trilliums, and explained, in answer to a ques- 

 tion, that he had always heard them called 

 " nosebleed." Somewhere, then, — I omitted 

 to inquire where, — this is their " vulgar " 

 name. In Franconia the people call them 

 " Benjamins," which has a pleasant Biblical 

 sound, — better than " nosebleed," at all 

 events, — though to my thinking " trillium " 

 is preferable to either of them, both for 

 sound and for sense. People cry out against 

 " Latin names." But why is Latin worse 

 than Hebrew ? And who could ask anything 

 prettier or easier than trillium, geranium, 

 anemone, and hepatica? 



The next morning I set out for Echo Lake. 

 At that height, in that hollow among the 

 mountains, the season must still be young. 

 There, if anywhere, I should find the early 



