"These few
plants and flowers are due to that sheltering rock which protects the
meadow from the polar winds. Put that tuft in your bosom, Minna," he
added, gathering a flower,--"that balmy creation which no eye has ever
seen; keep the solitary matchless flower in memory of this one
matchless morning of your life. You will find no other guide to lead
you again to this saeter."
So saying, he gave her the hybrid plant his falcon eye had seen amid
the tufts of gentian acaulis and saxifrages,--a marvel, brought to
bloom by the breath of angels. With girlish eagerness Minna seized the
tufted plant of transparent green, vivid as emerald, which was formed
of little leaves rolled trumpet-wise, brown at the smaller end but
changing tint by tint to their delicately notched edges, which were
green. These leaves were so tightly pressed together that they seemed
to blend and form a mat or cluster of rosettes. Here and there from
this green ground rose pure white stars edged with a line of gold, and
from their throats came crimson anthers but no pistils. A fragrance,
blended of roses and of orange blossoms, yet ethereal and fugitive,
gave something as it were celestial to that mysterious flower, which
Seraphitus sadly contemplated, as though it uttered plaintive thoughts
which he alone could understand.
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