CHAPTER IX. 



THE VERONICA. 



"The face of Jesus Christ." 2 CORINTHIANS iv. 6. 



AMONG the fringes of grass along the white dusty 

 waysides may often be seen, in the beginning 

 of summer, the little spikes of the germander speedwell. 

 The blue of its flowers harmonizes with the green of 

 its own foliage and the lush herbage of the bank in a 

 way that nature alone could effect. And what a blue 

 it is ; clear, deep, transparent, like that of an Eastern 

 sky suffused with moonlight, cold and brilliant, and 

 yet soft like the lambent azure depth of a glacier 

 crevasse ! A little circle of white forms the centre, 

 beautifully relieves the blue, and gives to the eye of 

 the blossom a wondrous expressiveness. Slender lines 

 of darker hue radiate from it to the edge; one petal, 

 that along which the pistil lies, being narrower and 

 smaller than the other three, and, unlike them, destitute 

 of lines ; while two stamens, like the antennae of an 

 insect, project from the eye and remain attached to 

 the corolla, which falls off entire, almost with a touch, 



