222 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



upon meadow and field, where from out the short grass, while 

 night wraps all, the mushrooms will be peeping to fleck the 

 dew-strewn meadows with their snowy whiteness in the morn- 

 ing sunlight. In the woodlands the feathery mass of the seeds 

 of the wild clematis, or travellers' joy as it is mostly called, 

 already whitens upon the hedges, growing more silvery day 

 by day. 



From the trunks of the plane trees the bark is peeling, as 

 one may notice by their mottled appearance ; they have already 

 shed many of their glossy leaves. The chestnuts will soon be 

 dropping their bunches of green-spiked fruit, encasing the 

 richly coloured and exquisitely polished nut, to the great 

 delight of the children. Their fruit, split into three quarters, 

 will be lying thick upon the roads, and when fallen we see in 

 one or two quarters of the shell the nut snugly lying in its 

 white case like a red sard in a cushion of satin. 



