The two young discoverers of that strange and sickening treasure commented upon it as follows:

'I deduce,' said the boy, 'three main facts: that not yet married Marina and her married sister hibernated in my lieu de naissance; that Marina had her own Dr Krolik, pour ainsi dire; and that the orchids came from Demon who preferred to stay by the sea, his dark-blue great-grandmother.'

'I can add,' said the girl, 'that the petal belongs to the common Butterfly Orchis; that my mother was even crazier than her sister; and that the paper flower so cavalierly dismissed is a perfectly recognizable reproduction of an early-spring sanicle that I saw in profusion on hills in coastal California last February. Dr Krolik, our local naturalist, to whom you, Van, have referred, as Jane Austen might have phrased it, for the sake of rapid narrative information (you recall Brown, don't you, Smith?), has determined the example I brought back from Sacramento to Ardis, as the Bear-Foot, B,E,A,R, my love, not my foot or yours, or the Stabian flower girl's - an allusion,** which your father, who, according to Blanche, is also mine, would understand like this' (American finger-snap). 'You will be grateful,' she continued, embracing him, 'for my not mentioning its scientific name. Incidentally the other foot - the Pied de Lion from that poor little Christmas larch, is by the same hand - possibly belonging to a very sick Chinese boy who came all the way from Barkley College.'

'Good for you, Pompeianella (whom you saw scattering her flowers in one of Uncle Dan's picture books, but whom I admired last summer in a Naples museum). Now don't you think we should resume our shorts and shirts and go down, and bury or burn this album at once, girl. Right?