WATER-LILIES 93 
lady she, not without royal blood, indeed, but 
with rather a bend sinister; not precisely 
beautiful, but very fastidious ; encased over her 
whole person with a gelatinous covering, liter- 
ally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is 
suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress 
from the throne; for we have observed certain 
slow watercourses where the leaves of the 
water-lily have been almost wholly replaced, in 
a series of years, by the similar, but smaller 
leaves of the water-shield. More rarely seen is 
the slender Utricularia, a dainty maiden, whose 
light feet scarce touch the water, —with the 
still more delicate floating white Water-Ra- 
nunculus, and the shy Villarsia, whose sub- 
merged flowers merely peep one day above the 
surface and then close dgain forever. Then 
there are many humbler attendants, Potamo- 
getons or pond-weeds. And here float little 
emissaries from the dominions of land; for the 
fallen florets of the Viburnum drift among the 
lily-pads, with mast-like stamens erect, sprin- 
kling the water with a strange beauty, and cheat- 
ing us with the promise of a new aquatic flower. 
These are the still life of this sequestered 
nook; but it is in fact a crowded thoroughfare. 
No tropic jungle more swarms with busy exist- 
ence than these midsummer waters and their 
bushy banks. The warm and humming air is 
