ere left
over from last winter's road mending.

Many another species of wild flower which, "born to blush unseen and
waste its sweetness on the desert air," grows in the quiet Cotswold
lanes might here be named; but even though at times one may feel, with
Wordsworth,

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

I will leave the humble wayside plants and descend into the vale. For it
is along the back brook that the tallest and stateliest wild flowers may
best be seen. The scythes mowed them all down in May, and again in July,
in the broad "millpound," so that they do not grow so tall by the main
stream; but the back brook, the natural course of the river before the
mills were made, was left unmolested by the mowers, and is a mass of
life and colour.

Here grows the graceful meadow-sweet, fair and tall, and white and
fragrant; here the willow-herb, glorious with pink blossoms, rears its
head high above your shoulders among the sword-flags and the green
rushes and "segs"; the whole bank is a medley of white meadow-sweet,
scorpion-grasses, forget-me-nots, pink willow-herbs, and lilac heads of
mint all jumbled up together. Never was such a delightful confusion of
colour! Great dock leaves two feet wide clothe the path by the
water-side with all the splendour of malachite.

The breeze blows up stream, and the trout are rising incessantly, taking
something small. They will not look at any artificial fly, even in the
rippling breeze; there is nothing small enough in any fly-book to catch
them this afternoon. But when the sun gets low, and the great brown
moths come out and flutter over the water, the red palmer will catch a
dish of fish. Willow trees--"withies" they call them hereabouts--grow
along the brook-side. So white are the backs of their oval leaves that
when the breeze turns them back, the woods by the river look bright and
silvery. To-morrow, when the breeze has almost died away, only the tops
of the willows will be silvered; the next day, if all be calm and still,
all will be green as emerald. Such infinite variety is there in the
woods! Not only do the tints change month by month, but day by day the
colour varies; so that there is always something new, some fresh effect
of light and shade to delight the eye of man in the quiet English
country. Dotted about in the midst of the stream are little islands of
forget-me-nots. The lovely light blue is ref