a patch of lilies of the valley in
order that they might spare an expanse of violets, so delicate-looking
that they feared to hurt them. But soon they found themselves surrounded
on all sides by violets, and so with wary, gentle steps they passed over
their fresh fragrance inhaling the very breath of springtide. Beyond the
violets, a mass of lobelias spread out like green wool gemmed with
pale mauve. The softly shaded stars of globularia, the blue cups of
nemophila, the yellow crosses of saponaria, the white and purple ones
of sweet rocket, wove patches of rich tapestry, stretching onward and
onward, a fabric of royal luxury, so that the young couple might enjoy
the delights of that first walk together without fatigue. But the
violets ever reappeared; real seas of violets that rolled all round
them, shedding the sweetest perfumes beneath their feet and wafting in
their wake the breath of their leaf-hidden flowerets.

Albine and Serge quite lost themselves. Thousands of loftier plants
towered up in hedges around them, enclosing narrow paths which they
found it delightful to thread. These paths twisted and turned, wandered
maze-like through dense thickets. There were ageratums with sky-blue
tufts of bloom; woodruffs with soft musky perfume; brazen-throated
mimuluses, blotched with bright vermilion; lofty phloxes, crimson and
violet, throwing up distaffs of flowers for the breezes to spin; red
flax with sprays as fine as hair; chrysanthemums like full golden moons,
casting short faint rays, white and violet and rose, around them. The
young couple surmounted all the obstacles that lay in their path and
continued their way betwixt the walls of verdure. To the right of
them sprang up the slim fraxinella, the centranthus draped with
snowy blossoms, and the greyish hounds-tongue, in each of whose tiny
flowercups gleamed a dewdrop. To their left was a long row of columbines
of every variety; white ones, pale rose ones, and some of deep violet
hues, almost black, that seemed to be in mourning, the blossoms that
drooped from their lofty, branching stems being plaited and goffered
like crape. Then, as they advanced further on, the character of the
hedges changed. Giant larkspurs thrust up their flower-rods, between the
dentated foliage of which gaped the mouths of tawny snapdragons, while
the schizanthus reared its scanty leaves and fluttering blooms, that
looked like butterflies' wings of sulphur hue splashed with soft lake.
The b