Summer Meeting. 149 



grows with the years. I anticipate them for weeks, and when they come 

 they are always larger and brighter than I had pictured." 



If you are fond of the amethyst or lavender shades you will admire 

 the wisteria, blossom and vine. It is most poetical, because of its grace 

 and also because of its long, soft lavender sprays hanging down against 

 the dark, rich foliage. Whether covering a summer house or draping 

 an old evergreen, it holds the eye as a violet-tinted cloud of beauty. The 

 yucca plant is statuesque in the glory of its flowering. 



And hollyhocks are both sprightly and dignified, and most lovely old- 

 fashioned decoration, whether along the wedding party's path, against 

 the house for your garden party or brightening the darkened chimney 

 corner. 



The remembrance of August is with the day lilies, so called, I suppose, 

 because they open their sweet and fragile white chalices at sunset time. 

 Their fragrance on a moonlight evening transports you to fairy land. 

 The trees are visions, their weird still-lying shadows call you to rest. 

 The moon's cool light is that of the realm of peace and gentleness. But 

 the power of fragrance is the secret of this enchantment. Has not a 

 whiff of sweet violets or the breath of the trailing honeysuckle carried 

 you back to your mother's garden or the first scent in the spring of the 

 stirring earth (the woodsy smell), does it not, with the swiftness of the 

 magic rug, bear you to the woods and stream and the first spring fishing 

 expedition of a liarefoot boy that used to be yourself? And the perfume 

 of a rose ; will it not waft your thoughts to those happy days when you 

 begged or bought roses for your divinity, a favorite senior girl, or for 

 your sweetheart? 



We do not gather the broad, flat leaves of the day lily to bring 

 into the house with the delicate blossom, but use some fine leaves, as 

 of ferns or rose geranium. Though the blossoms shrivel soon, they dif- 

 fuse their sweet odor through the house in a most grateful way. 



You will call to mind other later flowers that are welcomed and 

 loved more for their timely coming even than for their characteristic 

 beauty. In the procession with asters and cosmos we find chrysanthemums 

 and the purple and white desmodium, showering their bushes with fine 

 graceful sprays of blossoms, only they are not as hardy against our cold 

 winters as we could wish. 



Golden rod and golden glow (Rudebeckia) proclaim one of the 

 favorite colors of autumn, as though he gathered and held as much 

 of the sunshine as he could before it should withdraw beyond his grasp. 

 Winter need not deprive us of pretty things from out of doors, for the 

 barberries give us decoration, if not flowers, in their loose panicles of 

 small bright red berries, and the bittersweet holds its yellow and red 



