FLOWERS AND FOLKS. 213 



are the purple gerardias with which August 

 and September embroider the pasture and 

 the woodland road. They have not the 

 sweet breath of the arbutus, nor even the 

 faint elusive odor of the violet, but for dain- 

 tiness of form, perfection of color, and grace- 

 fulness of habit it would be impossible to 

 praise them too highly. Of our three spe- 

 cies, my own favorite is the one of the nar- 

 row leaves ( Gerardia tenuifolia), its longer 

 and slighter flower -stems giving it an airi- 

 ness and grace peculiarly its own. A lady 

 to whom I had brought a handful the other 

 day expressed it well when she said, "Ihey 

 look like fairy flowers." They are of my 

 mind in this : they love a dry, sunny open- 

 ing in the woods, or a grassy field on the 

 edge of woods, especially if there be a sel- 

 dom-used path running through it. I know 

 not with what human beings to compare them. 

 Perhaps their antitypes of our own kind are 

 yet to be evolved. But I have before now 

 seen a woman who might worthily be set in 

 their company, a person whose sweet and 

 wise actions were so gracefully carried and 

 so easily let fall as to suggest an order 

 and quality of goodness quite out of rela- 

 tion to common flesh and blood. 



