148 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 



replied, at the same time following the direction of 

 my finger with her eyes. 



"Infant, it is never too late, especially if your 

 early Spring plans have come to grief. Besides, 

 I 'm sure by the frantic hurry that those two birds 

 are in, that they are young widowers in whose 

 elated breasts 'hope is triumphing over experi- 

 ence.'" 



On the Elder Bush toward which Flower Hat 

 gazed, perched "la femme," in a subdued olive 

 cloak and yellowish petticoat. She scarcely turned 

 her head, yet saw all that was passing, and when 

 the song ended in a pitched battle during which 

 feathers flew, she joined not the victor, but the 

 vanquished, where he went to plume himself in a 

 distant Crab tree! 



The next time we went to the Sea Gardens, 

 it was the last week in the same month, which 

 had been a time of such dryness that we could 

 easily drive across the meadows. Flower Hat was 

 still skeptical about Orchids. 



"Yellow Fringed Orchis, do you say, growing 

 in this withering heat? If you had said that they 

 were in the wet meadows by Time o' Year's 

 woods, where we found the splended purple fringy 



