26 



PURPLE SANDWORT. 



'HE lark and the purple sandwort 

 are inseparably connected in the 

 herdsman's calendar. When the 

 modest little flower opens her petals in the 

 sunny morning, the lark springs from his 

 nest in the wild heath, arid pours forth his 

 full tide of song, to meet the rising sun. 

 She, too, seems to look after him, as if she 

 rejoiced in the opening day, though she has 

 no voice with which to join the universal 

 chorus that bursts forth from every crea- 

 ture in wood or field. Abroad at such an 

 hour in the stillness and the loveliness of 

 the early dawni, when not even the wakeful 

 labourer is moving, when no curling smoke 

 ascends from the cottage chimney, nor are 

 there any sounds of busy hfe to break upon 



