A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 39 



immersion, its dripping surface condensing the moisture in rivu- 

 lets along its parallel veins, and conducting through the grooved 

 stem a long and generous quaff to the parched earth at its root. 

 Other leaves are clothed in a glistening sheen resembling hoar- 

 frost; they flash a fugitive response to your lantern, and upon 

 the slightest touch let fall their bright disguise and leave their 

 surface dry. Another great lush leaf exhibits a strange contra- 

 diction of caprice, and seems hardly to know its own mind, its 

 general surface appearing perfectly free from moisture, yet nurs- 

 ing its great crystal globe at every depression upon its uneven 

 surface. Its moveless poise seems almost instinct with avarice. 

 Its cup is brimful, and each silvery restless bead, 



" Scarce touching where it lies," 



grows apace until the accumulated weight disturbs the equilib- 

 rium, which is the tremorous signal for a general release and a 

 net- work of flashing rills. 



Following the sound of the water in the runnel, a rare spec- 

 tacle awaits us where the Equisetum, the plebeian "horse-tail," 

 or scouring- rush, of the daylight, now stands transfigured, a mar- 

 vel of nature's bijoutry, each whorl of its curved fringes drooping 

 with its weight of gems, a mimic fountain worthy the court of 

 any Faerie Queene, like that in Spenser's " bower of bliss," 



" So pure and shiny that the silver flood 

 Through every channell running one might see." 



The freaks of dewy decoration seem endless in variety. The 

 feathery tops of blooming grasses are all a-tangle with flashing 

 spangles, while their drooping blades are often free from moisture, 

 or perhaps upraised, hang a border along their edge, or pierce a 

 solitary bead at their tips. Here is a bristling bed of fox- tail 

 grass, an army of those "peaceful spears of the field," each bearing 

 aloft its glittering trophy unto the dawn. Why this seeming con- 

 tradiction and violation of natural law as evinced in the case of 



