BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 149 



nicd) were ripe, or nearly so; very bright 

 and handsome on their long, slender stems, 

 as I stood under the tree and looked up. 

 With the sun above them they became 

 fairly translucent, the shape of the stone 

 showing. They were pretty small, I thought, 

 and would never take a prize at any horti- 

 cultural fair ; I needed more than one in the 

 mouth at once when I tested their quaHty ; 

 but a robin, who had been doing the same 

 thing, seemed reluctant to finish, and surely 

 robins are competent judges in matters of 

 this kind. My own want of appreciation 

 was probably due to some pampered coarse- 

 ness of taste. 



An orchid, with one leaf and a spike of 

 minute greenish flowers, attracted notice, 

 not for any showy attributes, but as a plant 

 I did not know. Adder's mouth, it proved 

 to be ; or, to give it all the Grecian Latinity 

 that belongs to it, llicrostylis ophioglos- 

 soides. How astonished it would be to hear 

 that mouth-confounding name applied to its 

 modest little self ; as much astonished, per- 

 haps, as we should be, who are not modest, 

 though we may be greenish, if we heard 



