[Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER X. Induced at length to renew his experimental inquiries into the process of inflorescence, Charney became enchanted by the prodigious and immutable congruities of Nature. For some time, indeed, his eyes were baffled by the infinite minuteness of the phenomena to which his attention was directed; when, just as his patience became exhausted by his own incapacity, Ludovico conveyed to him, from his neighbour the fly-catcher, a microscopic lens, with which Girardi had been enabled to number eight thousand oculary facets on the cornea of a fly’s eye. Charney was transported with joy at the acquisition! The most occult portion of the flower now became manifested for his investigation; and already he fancied himself advancing with gigantic strides in the path of science. Having carefully analyzed the texture of his flower, he convinced himself that the brilliant colours of the petal, their form, their crimson spots, the bands of velvet or satin which adorn their bases or fringe their extremities, are not intended for the mere gratification of the eye, but for the purpose of reflecting, attracting, or modifying the rays of the sun, according to the necessities of the flower during the grand process of fructification. The polished crowns or studs of the calyx, lustrous like porcelain, are doubtless glandular masses for the absorption of the air, light, and moisture, indispensable to the formation of the seed: for without light, no colour—without air and moisture, no vitality. Moisture, light, and heat, are the elements of vegetable life, which, on its extinction, it bequeaths in restitution to the universe. Unknown to Charney, his reveries and studies had attracted two deeply interested spectators: Girardi and his daughter. The latter, educated in habits of piety and seclusion, by a father imbued with reverential religious sentiments, was blessed with one of those ethereal natures in which every good and holy interest seems united. The beauty and excellence of Teresa Girardi, the graces of her person and mind, had not failed to attract admirers; and her deep and expansive sensibility seemed to announce a predisposition for human affections. But if a vague preference had occasionally influenced her feelings amid the _fêtes_ of Turin, every impulse of her gentle heart was now concentrated into grief for the captivity of her father.