252 AN OWL Sg EAD HOLIDAY. 
diminutive hermits have ever done or suffered, 
that they should choose thus to live and die, 
each by itself, in the vast solitude of a moun- 
tain forest ? 
It was already the middle of July, so that I 
was too late for the better part of the wood 
flowers. The oxalis (Ovalis acetosella), or 
wood-sorrel was in bloom, however, carpeting 
the ground in many places. I plucked a blos- 
som now and then to admire the loveliness of 
the white cup, with its fine purple lines and 
golden spots. If each had been painted on 
purpose for a queen, they could not have been 
more daintily touched. Yet here they were, 
opening by the thousand, with no human eye 
to look upon them. Quite as common (Words- 
worth’s expression, “ Ground flowers in flocks,” 
would have suited either) was the alpine en- 
chanter’s night-shade ( Circeea, alpina); a most 
frail and delicate thing, though it has little 
other beauty. Who would ever mistrust, to 
see it, that it would prove to be connected in 
any way with the flaunting willow-herb, or fire- 
weed ? But such incongruities are not confined 
to the “ vegetable kingdom.” The wood-nettle 
was growing everywhere; a juicy-looking but. 
coarse weed, resembling our common roadside 
nettles only in its blossoms. The cattle had 
found out what I never should have surmised, 
