^be jfragrant flote'lliSook 



Pilgrim's winter evening dark and dreary. Can you not see a 

 busy Priscilla storing up mullein stalks against the day in the 

 autumn when she will dip them one by one into that generous "^ \ 

 pot of boiling tallow and make her indispensable supply of 

 hag- tapers to light John Alden on his way? It is always so. 

 Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. The mullein 

 which was once in such high esteem, now we see trodden 

 tinder foot, its usefulness forgotten. ^ / PV X^^ 



Now we come to a parting in the woodland paths. If we 

 ^o to the right, the left will call and if the left we take, what 

 will the right hide? Which has the truer heart to guide us, 

 the shifting compass or the stubborn sign-post, nailed to 

 yonder stubborn oak; compass ever trembling uncertainly 

 but ever true to its distant star, or grim signpost, immovable 

 as a surveyor's landmark and probably right, but, also, 

 possibly wrong. Signposts are not unlike people, the more 

 set they are the more often wrong. This one looks wonder- 

 fully "stiff in his opinions." Certainly I doubt if his moral 

 standing equals his physical rectitude. Let us be guided by 

 the swinging compass needle and come with me over here 

 where you may smile with me on my compass of the hedge- 

 rows and my timepieces of the hillocks green, — my Clytie 

 flowers. • K i I / 



You will remember Clytie. She was a dainty little 

 nymph and Uke so many other ladies of old, sad, oh, sad to 

 tell, she fell in love with Apollo. And did Apollo fall in love 

 with her in turn? Well for gallantry's sake let us hope so, 



/] 



