WHIN AND BROOM 57 



the setting of the sun. The blossoms are still 

 trembling with the drops, and the linnets have 

 come out of their hiding from the rain for an even- 

 song. 



The yellow belongs to the whin and to the 

 broom not nearly so much to the whin as to the 

 broom. The fainter glow on these knobs of hard 

 rock is of the whin ; the brighter hue, around the 

 edges of the field, and where the sloping bank 

 retreats from the stream, is of the broom. 



The whins may burn with an intenser if lower 

 flame to one who is near, but theirs is not a 

 travelling shade. Besides, there are not so many 

 flowers, and some are half-hidden away amid the 

 dark green of the shrub. It does not scatter its 

 energies in colour, but conserves them for other 

 uses. 



The seedling begins life by putting forth very 

 soft three-leaved foliage. But in successive leaves 

 the mid-lobe extends and sharpens, until it becomes 

 a very formidable spike. Thus this innocent 

 child of nature very early in life develops into a 

 veritable Becky Sharp, who, " because of the spite 

 of fortune, whose beginnings she couldn't remember, 

 never had been a girl she had been a woman 

 since she was eight years old." 



