T 



A garden is earth's hymn of praise to heaven, 

 Sung every season in some changing tune, 

 Whose chords are colours, and whose odours sweet 

 Are tender symphonies/* 



ALAN ESTMERE. 



JUNE 



HE golden ways of the year's loveliest month are merry 

 with bird melodies, the woods are very 



" Aisles of bud and whitethroat song." 



The copse and meadow by which I pass along, and the way- 

 side hedges are fragrant and gay with fumitory, the pretty 

 bladder-campion and ragged-robin. But it is in the quiet 

 of the June-tide eve that I love to saunter past the cottages, 

 for it is there such happy pictures are formed in the homely 

 gardens and at the thresholds. I pass a garden fair with all 

 its wealth of old-world flowers, and sitting there beneath a 

 bower of olive-tinted foliage of the jasmine, ready to open 

 the fragrant hearts of its ivory stars, are two lovers. They 

 are speaking no words, for deep in their eyes is love's own 

 magic language. One happy morn next month, when 'twill 

 be sweet July, the little church nestling amid the trees will 

 be bright with a village wedding, for these two will be made 

 one. How bright, how fair the new life dawns for them ! 

 He is steady, and good, and strong, and she as thrifty a wife 

 as one could wish to find. And how comfortable they are 

 going to make the old folk ! 



Around another garden two old folk are wandering, stand- 

 ing now and again beside some favourite bed of blossoms. 

 " What does this mind ye of, lass ? " I hear him say to her 

 at his side, as they stand by a bed of fair white blooms, and 



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