The botanisers meanwhile threaded the mazes of the leafy trees with many a gay laugh and many a simple joke, and with much admiration of the multiform beauties spread before their eyes, until they came to a damp hollow, carpetted with moss of an emerald green brightness, which Eveline immediately recognised as the favourite habitat of the dainty moss which they were seeking. They separated, each taking a division, and many lovely things, insect and vegetable, were presented to their eyes—tiny beetles, scarcely the size of a pin’s head, harnessed in green and gold, tiny flies with lustrous bodies floating on gauzy wings, mosses with dainty blossoms, scarce distinguishable in colour from the plant itself, often covering a treacherous ooze, and over all the whispering trees and the occasional coo of the woodpigeon—but the prize they sought still eluded them. Mark expressed it as his opinion that it only existed in Eveline’s imagination, and Eveline was, sorrowfully, about to give up the search, when Elgitha raised a loud shout of triumph, and there was a great leap, a splash, and a tumble. “What are you doing?” exclaimed Mark, hastening to the help of his floundering cousin. “Don’t mind me! don’t mind me! Here it is! I’ve found it, Lina, I’ve found it!” “Let me look!” cried Eva, almost equally excited. “Come round this way,” said Mark, guiding his sister on firm ground to the edge of the swamp. “If Elgitha had not been so impatient she might have won her prize with dry feet!” “_Veni, vidi, vici!_” exclaimed the victorious Elgitha, holding aloft her prize; and, glancing at her soaking feet and stained dress, she continued, “When Julius Cæsar wrote that you don’t suppose he looked spick and span as when he went to dine with Pompeius Magnus.” “Elgitha thinks the prize well worth the cost,” said Eva, admiring the lovely growth; “look at its delicate fan-like leaves, pale green, with tiny rosy spikes—dangerous beauties, too; look at these poor bodies of slain flies, here, ensnared by this leaf—and these new ones just unfolding their spikes, how innocent they look!” “Nature’s coquettes!” laughed Mark. “Strange, is it not, to see the traps that are everywhere set for silly flies? But come, girls, we had best be getting home. We have accomplished the object of our expedition, taken our Pergama, as Elgitha would say, and the sooner we get our victorious maid home the better. It would be an ignominious catastrophe to have the discoverer of Venus’s fly-trap in bed for a week with mustard poultices and water gruel.” Elgitha, elated with her success, protested, but in vain, for Eveline agreed with Mark, and observed that even if they had not been successful it was time that they should be getting home again. The walk back was accomplished with sedater spirits, and as they neared home the brother and sister insensibly fell into grave discourse, while Elgitha, now rather tired, dragged a little behind.