of its roots in the
loamy sand, add the thickness of its flattened stem, and the width of its
branching fronds, you may say that it comes near to be a little tree.
Beneath where the ponds are bushy mare's-tails grow, and on the moist
banks jointed pewterwort; some of the broad bronze leaves of water-weeds
seem to try and conquer the pond and cover it so firmly that a wagtail
may run on them. A white butterfly follows along the waggon-road, the
pheasants slip away as quietly as the butterfly flies, but a jay
screeches loudly and flutters in high rage to see us. Under an ancient
garden wall among matted bines of trumpet convolvulus, there is a hedge-
sparrow's nest overhung with ivy on which even now the last black berries
cling.

There are minute white flowers on the top of the wall, out of reach, and
lichen grows against it dried by the sun till it looks ready to crumble.
By the gateway grows a thick bunch of meadow geranium, soon to flower;
over the gate is the dusty highway road, quiet but dusty, dotted with the
innumerable foot-marks of a flock of sheep that has passed. The sound of
their bleating still comes back, and the bees driven up by their feet
have hardly had time to settle again on the white clover beginning to
flower on the short roadside sward. All the hawthorn leaves and briar
and bramble, the honeysuckle, too, is gritty with the dust that has been
scattered upon it. But see--can it be? Stretch a hand high, quick, and
reach it down; the first, the sweetest, the dearest rose of June. Not
yet expected, for the time is between the may and the roses, least of all
here in the hot and dusty highway; but it is found--the first rose of
June.

Straight go the white petals to the heart; straight the mind's glance
goes back to how many other pageants of summer in old times! When
perchance the sunny days were even more sunny; when the stilly oaks were
full of mystery, lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in the midst of their
mighty branches. A glamour in the heart came back to it again from every
flower; as the sunshine was reflected from them, so the feeling in the
heart returned tenfold. To the dreamy summer haze, love gave a deep
enchantment, the colours were fairer, the blue more lovely in the lucid
sky. Each leaf finer, and the gross earth enamelled beneath the feet. A
sweet breath on the air, a soft warm hand in the touch of the sunshine, a
glance in the gleam of the rippled waters, a whisper in th