FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 195 



soms yesterday morning, and there were 

 more in the afternoon, and again to-day. 

 And how lovely they are ! People almost 

 seemed to have forgotten them until ten 

 years ago; they were flowers of the &quot;old 

 gardens.&quot; And then Dame Fashion took 

 them up, by a strange inadvertence mak 

 ing a happy choice, and strangely enough 

 she has not yet discarded them. They were 

 too lovely for her favour to spoil them ; but I 

 am not sure that those of us who love flowers 

 for what they are, will not find them sweeter 

 and dearer when she shall have passed 

 them by. 



The season is waxing older. The fragrant 

 odour of the milkweeds here and there fills 

 the air, the wild carrot lifts its jewelled lace 

 over the recently mown fields ; two days 

 ago I saw the golden-rod by the roadside in 

 the old Bay State, and the dark red clusters 

 of the chokecherry bedeck the hedgerows. 

 The days grow perceptibly shorter, ere yet 

 the year has reached its climax. 



Familiar faces are missing at the inn, 

 and familiar voices are silent. Already 

 their owners are doubtless far, far away, 

 speeding over the summer seas, perhaps I 

 hope surely to find balm in the Gilead of 

 another clime and other scenes, among an 



