Zbe Seam^ Sice of Summer. 1 3 1 



are yielding to the strain. The Onocleas are yellow 

 and shrivelled, the Osmundas are turning brown and 

 crisp and curling into a shapeless shrivel. Even the 

 sturdy brakes, the Pteris Aquilina, are giving up the 

 fight and dying by dozens. The great bog running 

 through the woodland is as dry as a brick-kiln. The 

 cardinal-flower blooms there as a matter of habit, 

 and the purple-fringed orchis. They show the 

 ravages of the dry term less than almost any other 

 flowers. But all the soil where they flourish has 

 lost its rich and steamy smell, dank and heavy with 

 the ferment of woody soil and moss and fern. Only 

 the mosquitoes thrive undaunted, and hum with as 

 sharp and strident a twang as ever and bite as 

 merrily. 



The eye falls on the brilliant fruit of the trilliums, 

 and the clumsy leaves of the hellebore, and the 

 vision of the spring comes up before him, when all 

 this soil was soaked with the melting snows and 

 drenched with the copious showers, and the earth 

 was bright in emerald greens, and juicy with the 

 succulence of tender verdure. And now the earth 

 cries in vain for one poor draught from a passing 

 shower, and the clouds strive fruitlessly to rally for 

 a storm, and the east wind is as hot as the wind of 

 the south. 



And how helplessly both nature and man lift up 

 their varying appeals for respite and for aid ! How 

 oblivious seem the powers of the air to all this neces- 

 sity ! How impatiently we await the rounding of 



