'A garden must be looked unto and dressed, as the body/* 



GEORGE HERBERT. 



AUGUST 



A DREAM of rest comes after the ceaseless hurry of 

 ^ Summer, 



u When the Summer fields are mown, 

 When the birds are fledged and flown." 



The past days of unrelenting sunshine, and the oft-time 

 promises of rain unfulfilled, have made the Summer fields, 

 shorn of their waving grasses and blossoms, patches of brown, 

 burnt-up stubble, where the grasshoppers, merry throughout 

 the noon hours, seem the only thing alive in the sleepy land. 

 One now beholds the warm, rich tints of Autumn gradually 

 creeping upon the foliage of tree and hedge, and the bracken, 

 like a sea blown into ripples by the wind at play beneath the 

 shadowy branches of the wood, is turning to many shades of 

 brown. The floors of our "English short sweet lanes," are 

 dappled with the mosaic from the shafts of sunlight escaping 

 from between the dense foliage above, and here the bees seek 

 the pearly pink bloom of the few lingering bramble blossoms. 



Of the wild flowers to be found in late Summer, the most 

 beautiful are the helleborines. Although by no means common, 

 the helleborines are to be found in this corner of Middlesex ; 

 last week I found a perfect specimen of the Broad-leafed 

 Helleborine (Epipactus latifolia\ sending up from its root 

 three tall spikes of loose greenish-purple blossoms. Near to 

 this I have found the Marsh Helleborine, of similar struc- 

 ture, whose beauty is so easily overlooked. These flowers are 



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