For some time I suspected the pimpernel of not invariably closing its petals before rain, and at last by precise observation found that it did not.

Twice in a comparatively short period I noted the petals wide open within a few minutes of a shower.

It appears rather to close during the atmospheric change which occurs previous to rain than to rain itself.
Once now and then a shower seems to come up in the driest weather without warning or change in the atmosphere: the cloud is over and gone almost before it seems worth while to take shelter.

To the approach of such shower-clouds the pimpernel does not invariably respond, but it is perfectly accurate if anything serious be brewing.
By a furrow in the sward by the roadside there grew a little piece of some species of gorse--so small and delicate, with the tiniest yellow flowers, that it was well worthy of a place where it would be admired; for few could have seen it hidden there.
Birds'-foot lotus covered the sward of one part of the Cuckoo-fields, on the higher ground near the woods, where the soil was dry; and by the hedge there were some bushy plants of the rest-harrow, whose prickly branches repel cattle and whose appearance reproaches the farmer for neglect.

Yet though an outcast with animals and men, it bears a beautiful flower, butterfly-shaped and delicately tinted with pink.