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ing, puts the bitter-sweet's red and yellow 

 out of countenance. Frost cannot wither it, 

 nor winter pale its infinite vitality. In the 

 first snow you find it gleaming cheerily amid 

 briers all leafless, or around tall, dead weeds. 



Mortal maidens choose instead of it "love- 

 vine." Wise folk call it dodder; children, 

 "gold-thread." See how it tangles in and 

 out of the waterside growths, making webs 

 of spun sunshine below their dusk of leaves. 

 A true parasite, it is nobly impartial. You 

 find it equally in sunlit breadths of clover, 

 in this tangle of dark stems. It grows rank- 

 er upon the succulent water-fed plants. 



Would you practise divination, break the 

 tiniest jointed yellow stem and fling it be- 

 hind you in the crotch of shrub or weed. 

 Ten days later look at it. If it has with- 

 ered to nothingness, so shall your under- 

 taking fail your lover prove untrue. Con- 

 trarywise, if a fine yellow thread begins to 

 creep out from new knotted roots, you may 

 go your ways rejoicing, secure of good faith, 

 good fortune. Before the summer ends all 

 the clump will be gold laced with the deli- 

 cate deadly twining. For though the sup- 

 porting stem may flourish greenly through 

 that season, it puts away life and leaf to- 

 gether. New stems will spring from the 



