A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 



can get a blessing from the ambrosial ether in 

 a bright glistening sheen and a border of dew- 

 drops, even on a cloudy night, when all his 

 neighbors are athirst. 



The tobacco - field over the wall looks be- 

 witched and all on end, the plants simulating the 

 conical shape they soon shall bear in the drying- 

 house. The flowers on the potato -plants, saucer- 

 shaped by day, are now perchance nodding with 

 their open rim puckered in gathers around the 

 central stamens a common caprice of these 

 flowers, but dependent upon some whim which 

 I have not yet solved. 



Turning to his "posies," our 

 floriculturist may pick an exotic 

 bouquet from his own familiar 

 borders. His starry " blue-bot- 

 tles " have raised their horns 

 and assumed the shape of a 

 shuttlecock. His balsams wear 

 a hang- dog look, with every 

 leaf sharply declined. Certain 

 of his coreopsis blossoms are 

 turned vertically by a sharp 

 bend at the summit of the stem. 

 Many of his favorites, like the 

 Eschscholtzia blossoms, have 

 closed their eyes or perhaps hung 

 their heads, and refuse to look 

 him in the face, while his climbing: 



O 



nasturtiums, especially if they should be 

 of the dwarf variety (minus], await his 

 coming in hushed expectancy, and their wall 

 of sheeny shields flashes a " boo " at him out 

 of the darkness, which immediately reveals the 

 changed position of their foliage. Every individual 



