174 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



weeks longer than its more fortunate fellows left 

 behind in their native haunts and then only to 

 wither and perish without requital ? Know the 

 orchid ? without the faintest idea of the veritable 

 divorce which its kidnapping had involved ! 



Thanks to the new dispensation, we may in- 

 deed claim a deeper sympathy with the flower 

 than is implied in a mere recognition of its pretty 

 face. We know that this orchid is but the half of 

 itself, as it were ; that its color, its form, however 

 eccentric and incomprehensible, its twisted in- 

 verted position on its individual stalk -like ovary, 

 its slender nectary, its carefully concealed pollen 

 all are anticipations of an insect complement, a 

 long-tongued night-moth perhaps, with whose life 

 its own is mysteriously linked through the sweet 

 bond of perfume and nectar, and in the sole hope 

 of posterity. 



And the flower had been stolen from its haunt 

 while its consort slept, and had awakened in a 

 glazed prison doubtless sufficiently comfortable, 

 save for the absence of that one indispensable 

 counterpart, towards whom we behold in the blos- 

 som's very being the embodied expression of wel- 

 come. 



Blooming day after day in anticipation of his 

 coming, and week after week still hoping against 



