Septimius found so strangely, seems to have had one or the other. If I
have rightly understood, it had a fragrance which the dahlia lacks; and
there was something hidden in its centre, a mystery, even in its fullest
bloom, not developing itself so openly as the heartless, yet not
dishonest, dahlia. I remember in England to have seen a flower at Eaton
Hall, in Cheshire, in those magnificent gardens, which may have been like
this, but my remembrance of it is not sufficiently distinct to enable me
to describe it better than by saying that it was crimson, with a gleam of
gold in its centre, which yet was partly hidden. It had many petals of
great richness.

Septimius, bending eagerly over the plant, saw that this was not to be the
only flower that it would produce that season; on the contrary, there was
to be a great abundance of them, a luxuriant harvest; as if the crimson
offspring of this one plant would cover the whole hillock,--as if the dead
youth beneath had burst into a resurrection of many crimson flowers! And
in its veiled heart, moreover, there was a mystery like death, although it
seemed to cover something bright and golden.

Day after day the strange crimson flower bloomed more and more abundantly,
until it seemed almost to cover the little hillock, which became a mere
bed of it, apparently turning all its capacity of production to this
flower; for the other plants, Septimius thought, seemed to shrink away,
and give place to it, as if they were unworthy to compare with the
richness, glory, and worth of this their queen. The fervent summer burned
into it, the dew and the rain ministered to it; the soil was rich, for it
was a human heart contributing its juices,--a heart in its fiery youth
sodden in its own blood, so that passion, unsatisfied loves and longings,
ambition that never won its object, tender dreams and throbs, angers,
lusts, hates, all concentrated by life, came sprouting in it, and its