ings of its native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its
favorite abode is along the dank mossy stones of some black and winding
brook, shaded with overarching bushes, and running one long stream of
scarlet with these superb occupants. It seems amazing how anything so
brilliant can mature in such a darkness. When a ray of sunlight strays
in upon it, the wondrous creature seems to hover on the stalk, ready to
take flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a spot whence I have
in ten minutes brought away as many as I could hold in both arms, some
bearing fifty blossoms on a single stalk; and I could not believe that
there was such another mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated
is comparable to them; and, with all the talent lately lavished on
wild-flower painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these
petals in the least degree delineated. It seems some new and separate
tint, equally distinct from scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for
which there is as yet no name, but only the reality.

It seems the signal of autumn, when September exhibits the first
Barrel-Gentian by the roadside; and there is a pretty insect in the
meadows--the Mourning-Cloak Moth it might be called--which gives
coincident warning. The innumerable Asters mark this period with their
varied and wide-spread beauty; the meadows are full of rose-colored
Polygala, of the white spiral spikes of the Ladies'-Tresses, and of
the fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower, always unique and
beautiful, opening its delicate eyelashes every morning to the sunlight,
closing them again each night, has also a thoughtful charm about it
as the last of the year's especial darlings. It lingers long, each
remaining blossom growing larger and more deep in color, as with many
other flowers; and after it there is nothing for which to look forward,
save the fantastic Witch-Hazel.

On the water, meanwhile, the last White Lilies are sinking beneath the
surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed is gone, though the rootless plants
of the delicate Bladder-Wort, spreading over acres of shallows, still
impurple the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some souls
are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others are like this
graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its
fellows around it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the
accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away.

The season reluctantly yields its rei