WATER-LILIES 85 
the spotted turtle slides over it ; the slow larvze 
of gauzy dragon-flies cling sleepily to its sides 
and await their change: all these fair or un- 
couth creatures feel, through the dim waves, 
the blessed longing of spring; and yet not one of 
them dreams that within that murky mass there 
lies a treasure too white and beautiful to be yet 
intrusted to the waves, and that for many a day 
the bud must yearn toward the surface, before 
the time when, aspiring above it, as mortals to 
heaven, it shall meet the sunshine with the 
answering beauty of the Water-Lily. 
Days and weeks have passed away; the 
wild duck has flown onward, to dive for his 
luncheon in some remoter lake; the tadpoles 
have made themselves legs, with which they 
have vanished ; the caddis-worms have sealed 
themselves up in their cylinders, and emerged 
again as winged insects; the dragon-flies have 
crawled up the water-reeds, and, clinging with 
heads upturned, have undergone the change 
which symbolizes immortality ; the world is 
transformed from spring to summer ; the lily- 
buds are opened into glossy leaf and radiant 
flower, and we have come for the harvest. 
We visitors lodged, last night, in the old 
English phrase, “at the sign of the Oak and 
Star.”” Wishing not, indeed, like the ancient 
magicians, to gather magic berry and bud 
