CHAP. ix. THE VERONICA. 153 



as if a small blue butterfly had alighted for a moment 

 on the spike, and had been scared away. It is an 

 exceedingly shy flower, and lasts but a very short 

 time; its heavenly colour, like that of the sky from 

 which it has got it, changing in the most disappointing 

 manner, so that a cluster of the loveliest blossoms 

 looking out upon us to-day from among the tall spears 

 of the grass, may to-morrow be dim, grey, or cloudy, 

 all their sparkle and brightness gone ; as if the dew 

 that nourished them had been tears, and the light that 

 called forth their beauty had also the power to fade it. 

 And the magic tint, which in a happy moment we 

 surprised, never reappears in the after-flowers. Or else 

 the corolla drops from the stalk, leaving an empty 

 socket where a little eye of blue had laughed back to 

 heaven. A succession of blossoms and fruit may be 

 seen on the same spike : and the seed-vessels, wedged 

 in the axils of the long leaves of the persistent calyx, 

 are like those of the shepherd's purse, containing in 

 them a small portion of summer's precious wealth, 

 waiting for the revelation of next season. 



This little speedwell, whose "darling blue" Tennyson 

 and a host of other poets have noticed with peculiar 

 delight, is known by the more learned name of 

 Veronica. It belongs to a large and varied family 

 of plants which are either shrubby or herbaceous, and 

 whose flowers grow on spikes. Blue is the predomin- 

 ating colour of their blossoms ; and they have received 

 their generic name of vera icon^ or true image, because 

 they seem to mirror exactly in their delicate hue the 



