IN SILENT WOODS 113 



raised his finger warningly, whispered "Come and 

 see ! " and led me to the cherished haunt of some 

 flower that she knew under a homespun name. 



The soft, dry Beech leaves, crumbling to rich 

 mould, end in a sort of fairy ring of frail young 

 Maidenhair, and Hemlock sheddings cover the 

 ground, where plants of a strange form stretch up 

 scaly, flesh -like spikes, crowned by a few loosely- 

 clustered flowers. The newly -opened blossoms are 

 yellowish, the maturer violet -pink, but except for 

 the four-petaled flowers the plant seems a fungus 

 growth ; yet a faint odor steals from it to identify 

 the flower, though it is half a parasite, as the 

 False Beech Drops of the old Heath tribe, and half 

 brother to the taller ice -white Indian Pipe. 



Surely the Indian Pipe itself is a plant to con- 

 jure with, and Ghost Flower is the most fitting of 

 its many names. What thought had the Magician 

 when he planned its evolution ? Was he dreaming 

 still of the Autumn frost -flowers born at dawn from 

 frozen sap and a sun -kiss? Or was he seeking to 

 incarnate a fantastic icicle in the flower world ? 



Silent even among voiceless ways stand the Indian 

 Pipes, unbendable, and grouped like statues. They 

 do not respond to the touch of the low ground 

 breezes that turn the hedging Ferns rudely about, 



H 



