22 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



the brook flows. In the dapple of shadow and 

 sunlight beneath them ferns of high and low 

 degree, royal and lady, cinnamon, interrupted and 

 hay-scented, wade in the shallows and caress the 

 deeps with their arching fronds. The blue flags 

 that waved beside the water a month ago are 

 gone, leaving only green pennants to mark their 

 camp site for another year; and it is well that it 

 is thus marked, else it were lost, for in the very 

 brook bottom where the March flood crashed 

 along have come to usurp it those tender annuals, 

 the jewel weeds. Their stems almost transparent, 

 their oval leaves so dark a green that it seems as 

 if some of the dancing shadows found rest in 

 them, they press in close groups into all shallow 

 places and lean over the edges of the clear pools to 

 admire the gold pendants that tinkle in their ears. 

 With these through the grassy shallows climb 

 true forget-me-nots, slenderest of brook-side 

 wanderers, each blue bloom a tiny turquoise for 

 the setting of the jewel-weeds' gold. Thus shaded 

 and carpeted the little ravine wanders down from 

 the hills, and the brook goes with it, as if hand in 

 hand, bringing to its side all sprightly life, a place 



