10 



Watching the bud carefully I felt rather than saw that it 

 was slowly, very slowly unrolling- before my eyes. To behold 

 such a phenomenon one may see sharpest where he looks askance, 

 as he would look at a chimney where the smoke was so attenuated 

 that he knew not whether what he saw was smoke, or only his 

 wish to see smoke; or as he would look ahead for approaching 

 objects when driving in a dark night, — not by straining the eyes, 

 but giving them the local rein to dilate to their full. 



So this swelling and uncurling of the flower was more like 

 the work of the imagination than something which the eyes 

 noted. At times a movement was visible, when a fold that had 

 been held, leapt, on being freed, or a stamen curled suddenly on 

 its long filament. Gradually, slowly, how slowly, the trumpet 

 opened; and ere too wide, as if in wisdom, it prepared for fertil- 

 ization in good time against any chance honey-hunter. The 

 anthers perched upon the tips of the slender filaments went 

 through an exquisite blossoming act of their own — five little 

 flowers within a flower, I might say. They formed the most 

 charming part of the whole dainty exhibition. At first each of 

 these anthers was like a pair of tiniest buns that had been baked 

 together back to back in the same pan. They were nicely bal- 

 anced on the end of the gracefully upcurved filaments. Soon, 

 along the line marking the lid that fitted in the top of each of 

 these biscuit-like anthers, a crack appeared; wider and wider it 

 grew, higher and higher rose the lid, till it stood on end, and 

 back to back with the lid of its little twin, which had risen with a 

 rhythm to match its own. Then the under sides, which proved 

 only nether lids, moved downward, downward till they were 

 reflexed against the filament. Within these upper and lower lids 

 little masses of golden pollen were disclosed on their little stalks. 

 Five little anthers were all hatching at once. 



And then, the flower was slowly pumped fuller and fuller 

 of juices, becoming a more perfect trumpet every second, until 

 it stood a finished blossom in the deepening twilight. The last 

 rose-draperies hung as the flimsiest filament of mist high in 



