V 
A SUMMER AFTERNOON 
THE noontide of the summer day is past, 
when all nature slumbers, and when the an- 
cients feared to sing, lest the great god Pan 
should be awakened. Soft changes, the grad- 
ual shifting of every shadow on every leaf, 
begin to show the waning hours. Ineffectual 
thunderstorms have gathered and gone by, 
hopelessly defeated. The floating bridge is 
trembling and resounding beneath the pressure 
of one heavy wagon, and the quiet fishermen 
change their places to avoid the tiny ripple that 
glides stealthily to their feet above the half- 
submerged planks. Down the glimmering lake 
there are miles of silence and still waters and 
green shores, overhung with a multitudinous 
and scattered fleet of purple and golden clouds, 
now furling their idle sails and drifting away 
into the vast harbor of the South. Voices of 
birds, hushed first by noon and then by possi- 
bilities of tempest, cautiously begin once more, 
leading on the infinite melodies of the June 
afternoon. As the freshened air invites them 
