"But how comes it here, at such a height ?" "Vegetation ceases here, it is true," said Seraphitus.

"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.