ACCORDING TO SEASON 



and its hum of eager bees, which were sucking 



the rare sweets of the late year from the myriad 



spires among which I lay one September morning. 



Another plant linked for me with the same re- 



Canadian gion and season is the so-called Canadian violet. 

 Till late September, along a winding mountain- 

 road, one could gather great bunches of its fresh, 

 leafy - stemmed flowers — white, yellow - centred, 

 fragrant, with purple veins above and violet- 

 washed below. Near them the wild-strawberries 

 were abundantly in blossom, as they are now to 

 some extent in Berkshire. 



And whenever I see a depauperate mountain- 

 ash forlornly decorating a corner of some over- 

 civilized country-place, languishing like a hand- 

 some young barbarian in captivity, I remember 



Mountain- how that same road brought one to the forest 

 which crowned the mountain's top — to a dimly 

 lighted path, which led through mossy fern-beds 

 till it reached a sudden opening, where two great 

 hemlocks made a frame, and a dark, distant moun- 

 tain formed a background for the feathery foliage 

 and scarlet clusters of a superbly vigorous speci- 

 men of this beautiful tree. 



If we leave the mountains and visit once more 

 the salt-meadows, we notice a multitude of erect, 

 narrow-leaved stems, which toward their summits 

 are studded with soft, rose-purple flower-heads. 



172 



