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FLORAL RECORDS. 15 
The peasants of Switzerland make the 
Poppy a flower of divination. The young 
Swiss girls, to test the fidelity of their lovers, 
put a poppy-petal into the hollow palm of 
the left hand, and strike it quickly with the 
right. If it breaks with a sharp sound, it 
signifies that he who loves them is sincere; 
if it makes no sound, the troth-plight will 
be treacherously and silently broken. 
Somnus, the god of sleep, was always re- 
presented crowned with poppies, or lying 
surrounded by them. 
The LinpEN, or Lime tree, is well made 
the emblem of conjugal love, as the story 
we are about to relate will prove. On the 
mountains of Phrygia there dwelt, in the 
ages when the gods were wont to visit the 
dwellings of men, an aged couple called 
Philemon and Baucis. ‘Their cottage was 
poor and lowly, and they had shared many 
a want and sorrow in it since first they were 
wedded ; but love had brightened their lives, 
and shone on their old age as on their youth. 
One evening as the sun sank in the west, 

