"I don't find them," said Julia. "I wish I could. Now what is that?"
"Another of the family, but not a Cystopteris. That is the Holly fern. Do you see how stiff and prickly it is? That was a troublesome one to manage. I gathered it on a high mountain in Wales, I think."
"Are high mountains good places?"
"For the mountain ferns. That is another Lastraea you have now; that is very elegant. That grows on mountains too, but also on many other places; shoots up in elegant tufts almost a yard high. I have seen it very beautiful. When the fruit is ripe, the indusium is something of a lilac colour, spotting the frond in double rows—as you see it there. I have seen these Lastraeas and others, growing in great profusion on a wild place in Devonshire, in the neighbourhood of the rushing torrent of a river. The spray flew up on the rocks and stones along its banks, keeping them moist, and sometimes overflowed them; and there in the vegetable matter that had by little and little collected, there was such a shew of ferns as I have not often seen. Another Lastraea grew, I should think, five feet high; and this one, and the Lady fern. Turn the next sheet—there it is. That is the Lady fern."
"How perfectly beautiful!" Julia exclaimed. "Is that a Lastraea too?"
Mr. Rhys laughed a little as he answered "No." Until then his voice had kept the quiet even tone of feeble strength.
"Why is it called Lady fern?"
"I do not know. Perhaps because it is so delicate in its structure—perhaps because it is so tender. It does not bear being broken from its root."
"But I think Eleanor is as strong as anybody," said Julia.
"Don't you remember how ill she was, only from having wetted her feet, last summer?" said Mr. Rhys with perfect gravity.