A FAST DAY PIRGRIMAGF. 
211 
bore. For a short time A, B, C and D are all botanists. 
After the labor of collecting specimens is over, a sunny 
spot on the west side of a slope—the wind being east—is 
chosen and lunch is served to the music of the pines. The 
scent of the sweet fern is in the air, and for a second course 
we hunt these plants over for the little cylinders of female 
flowers with the exquisitely tinted purple stigmas project¬ 
ing from the Scales. It is rather early in the season for 
them, and careful search on more than a hundred plants 
yields only four specimens. There is a meadow to cross 
and a hill to climb before we can reach the shrine of St. 
Viola. So on we go, while the phoebes and the bluebirds 
and the woodpeckers and the nuthatches try to charm us 
back. Their efforts are in vain, and finally we come to the 
sacred spot. The rocky slope of the hill is clad with 
birches, maples and beeches. At the base is a wet, mossy 
run. All along this run and far up the hill are hepaticas 
in abundance, just coming into flower. One of the party 
strays away from the other three and seems to be looking 
theground over very closely. Perhaps he sometime lost his 
jacknife here. That is an accident which frequently hap¬ 
pens to the like of him. A botanist needs to have his 
knife tied to him with a string. Presently he springs up, 
shouting, “ Here she is, here she is, St. Viola !” And, 
to be sure, there she is, and all fall on their knees at her 
shrine ! In fact, you have to get on your knees if you 
would come near her. Tike Portia, she may say, “ Now 
am I great because I am so small.” A tiny glint of bright 
yellow—that is her blossom, not more than two inches 
above the dead leaves. Her own leaves are roundish, with 
crumpled edges, and not more than an inch long at pres¬ 
ent. The flowers, as they grow older, will turn pale yel¬ 
low, and when they are gone the leaves will begin to en¬ 
large until they are at least quadrupled in size, and, what 
is queerer still, they will hug the ground so closely that 
