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these silent waters laden with treasure, and reserve 
them till another day, when they would go forth 
again to sparkle awhile in the sun, and to carry new 
existence to the germ of life below. 
“ That sorrowing Myrtle,” she added, “ cannot 
talk to you now. In her native clime she grows 
hundreds of feet high, but she is not happy even 
in this sheltered place, for she is without her 
companion who bears the life-giving dust.* Her 
stigmas still look green and vigorous, and she 
spends day after day in vain expectation that some 
friendly gale will waft it from other gardens ; but 
thus she has lived many summers. It is sad to see 
how long after the usual season she waits for what 
will perhaps never come ; but she says, ‘ while there 
is life, there is hope.’ Her stigmas even grow to 
* The Myrtle is of the Dicecia class. The fertile flowers are 
upon one plant, the barren ones upon another, and the germ is not 
fertilized when they are far separated. 
