82 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



Hotel-Pension, one turns in answer to it with 

 reluctance, declaring: 



" I could be content to see 

 June and no variety, 

 Loitering here, and living there. 

 With a book and frugal fare, 

 With a finer gypsy time, 

 And a cuckoo in the clime." 



And when the end of June arrives, and with 

 it the Arnica, the Greater Astrantia, the orange- 

 red Hawkweed, the Burnet buttei^fly, and the 

 passage of the bell-decked cows to the higher 

 Alpine pastures — " Liauba I Liauba ! por alpa ! " 

 — we may tremble for the coming of the scythe. 

 Already it will be commencing its deadly work 

 2,000 feet below, and its advance is rapid and 

 quite regardless of all we flower-lovers may mutter 

 under our breath, or more probably say aloud. 

 However, we must be reasonable. Complaints 

 of this description are not in order. The world 

 must be helped round : hay must be made, 

 and the flowers are not, and cannot be, our 

 all-in-all. We benefit most by being season- 

 able ; sufficient for the day is the good thereof ; 

 and the good of a day need not die with the 

 day. We take our fill of these flowers whilst 



