THE GREAT LILY'S MISSION.

BY MRS. J. B. McCONAUGHY.

Forty-three years ago last New-Year's Day a native boat was gliding
along through one of the small rivers of British Guiana, when it came to
a spot where the stream widened into a little lake. A celebrated
botanist was a voyager in the little canoe, and all at once his
attention was fixed on a wonderful plant he found growing along the
margin of the lake. All his weariness and the many discomforts of his
situation were forgotten in the enthusiasm of that moment. Never before
had he seen such a flower. One might fancy a giant had been raising
lilies to present to some fair giantess.

Imagine the rippling water covered with thick leaves of pale green,
lined with vivid crimson, each one almost large enough to cover your
bed, while all about were floating massive lilies, whose single petals
of white and rosy pink were more than a foot across, and numbered over a
hundred to a blossom.

The flower was sent home to England, and awakened great enthusiasm among
the lovers of science, but no one surmised that the fair stranger was
destined to effect a great revolution in the architecture of the world.
Yet all great enterprises have generally taken a very roundabout way
before they came to perfection. You could hardly forecast them when you
looked at their beginnings.

Such a royal lily well deserved a royal name. So it was christened the
_Victoria Regia_. Had it been a beautiful princess they were anxious to
make contented in her adopted land, they could not have taken more pains
to humor her tastes and whims. Mr. Paxton, the great gardener who had it
in charge, determined that the baby lily should never know that it was
not in its native waters, growing in its native soil, under its own
torrid skies. So he made up a bed for its roots out of burned loam and
peat; the great lazy leaves were allowed to float at their ease in a
tank of water, to which a gentle ripple was imparted by means of a
water-wheel, and then a house of glass, of a beautiful device, was built
over it all, and the right temperature kept up to still further deceive
the young South American.

With all this pampering it grew so fast that in a month it had outgrown
its house. A new one must be had forthwith, or the baby lily would be
hopelessly dwarfed. Mr. Paxton was not disconcerted by this
precociousness of his wayward pet, but at once put his talents to work
to provide it with suitable acc