So his ready answer gave me relief, and yet I could not divest myself of
a vague fear, a sense of coming thunder. In spite of my endeavors,
that calm, clear face would lift itself to my view as a mere
"weather-breeder"; but I ate my supper, unpacked my trunks, took out my
papers of precious seeds, and sitting in the flooding sunlight under the
little western porch, I poured them into my lap, and bade Halicarnassus
come to me. He came, I am sorry to say, with a pipe in his mouth.

"Do you wish to see my jewels?" I asked, looking as much like Cornelia
as a little woman, somewhat inclined to dumpiness, can.

Halicarnassus nodded assent.

"There," said I, unrolling a paper, "that is _Lychnidea acuminala_.
Sometimes it flowers in white masses, pure as a baby's soul. Sometimes
it glows in purple, pink, and crimson, intense, but unconsuming, like
Horeb's burning bush. The old Greeks knew it well, and they baptized
its prismatic loveliness with their sunny symbolism, and called it the
Flame-Flower. These very seeds may have sprung centuries ago from the
hearts of heroes who sleep at Marathon; and when their tender petals
quiver in the sunlight of my garden, I shall see the gleam of Attic
armor and the flash of royal souls. Like heroes, too, it is both
beautiful and bold. It does not demand careful cultivation,--no
hot-house, tenderness"--

"I should rather think not," interrupted Halicarnassus. "Pat Curran has
his front-yard full of it."

I collapsed at once, and asked humbly,--