S8 THE BOY SCOUT 



As I came through the coppice and across the 

 sunlit Common Spring seemed very near and very 

 beautiful. Although there had been a hard white 

 frost during the night, the sunshine had dispersed 

 the rime from the trees and bushes and surround- 

 ing herbage; and now, where the sunlight caught 

 them, the melted water-drops were sparkling like 

 so many liquid gems. 



The recollection of one particularly brilliant 

 drop will not be readily effaced, for, as the rays of 

 the sun played upon it, the effect was magical. 

 First a light green colour, somewhat like the 

 moving radiance given off by that insect-lamp- 

 lighter, the Glow Worm; then, a second or two 

 later, a brilliant coppery-orange, which one might 

 expect to see upon the dress of some Eastern 

 potentate; then pure silver, and next green again. 



The water-drop shimmered in the sunbeams; 

 each moment its symmetry was changing, each 

 moment as it twinkled it was disappearing before 

 my eyes. What ineffable loveliness in even a 

 little drop of water when viewed under the condi- 

 tions I mention! Its form and colour are greatly 

 enhanced if looked at through a field glass, and 

 several persons who chanced to pass me as I 

 watched the little drop wondered, no doubt, what 

 I found of interest in a Hawthorn bush denuded of 

 foliage and revealing to their eyes only naked 

 twigs, sombre, dark, and inanimate. Ah! if the 



