Ways of the Flowers. 67 



especially if there "be a hedge at the back for further 

 shelter. Where you have by chance lighted upon a 

 wild flower once you may generally reckon upon 

 finding it again next year — such as the white variety 

 of the bluebell or wild hyacinth, for which, unless you 

 mark the place, you may search in vain amid the 

 crowded blue bloom of the commoner sort. The 

 orchis, with its purple flower and dark green spotted 

 leaf, in the virtue of whose roots as a love-potion the 

 old people still believe, the strange-looking adder's 

 tongue, the modest wild strawberry, with its tiny but 

 piquant flavoured fruit, all have their special resorts. 

 Even the cowslips have their ways : by brooks some- 

 times a larger variety grows ; nor is there a sweeter 

 flower than its delicate yellow with small velvety 

 brown spots, like moles on beauty's cheek. 



In autumn, when the leaves turn colour, the groups 

 of trees in the park' are more effective in an artistic 

 point of view than those in the woods (unless over- 

 looked from a hill close by, when it is like glancing 

 along a roof of gold), because they stand out clear, and 

 are not confused or lost in the general glow. But it 

 is evening now ; and see — yonder the fox steals out 

 from the cover, wending his way down into the mea- 

 dows, where he will follow the furrows along their 

 course, mousing as he goes. 



F 2 



