September 



scape -gardening. How strangely these autumn 

 flowers quietly bide their time through all the 

 enticing warmth of spring and stronger heat of 

 early summer, until, after the year's decline has 

 begun, as if startled out of their absent-minded- 

 ness, they suddenly shoot up their tall stems, to 

 be quickly laden with rank foliage 'and coarse 

 blossoms. It is a sort of carnival of golden -rods 

 and multitudinous asters that hold full sway in 

 this belated season, as if they had an instinct 

 of congruity in both herding together, and also 

 in keeping themselves apart from the more deli- 

 cate forms of life prevailing in spring and 

 summer — playing the part of the picturesque 

 rabble that brings up the rear of the great an- 

 nual procession of vegetation. 



269 



