132 PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



lovely summer day if my reader will go with me into 

 the forest glades. 



Here is a pathway under the maples and beeches ; let 

 us follow it and see the woods in all their rich summer 

 array. The June rains and July heat have deepened 

 and strengthened their coloring and given matured life 

 and vigor to leaf and branch, so that we shall find a 

 richer though perhaps more subdued beauty of form 

 and color than that of the tender loveliness of the 

 spring. 



Overhead the light semi-transparent leaves are all 

 astir, quivering in the breeze as the sunshine comes 

 fitfully down through the tree-tops and casts moving 

 shadows on the dark mould below. 



Looking around us we mark the endless variety of 

 graceful forms in tree and leaf and flower. The earth is 

 teeming with luxuriance, and one might almost fancy 

 her conscious of all the wealth of vegetable treasures 

 she bears on her capacious breast, and which she has 

 brought forth and nourished. 



Besides the lofty maple's, oaks, beeches, elms and 

 birches, there is the leafy basswood (American lime), 

 scenting the air with the fragrance of its creamy 

 blossoms, and, farther on, the subtle almond-like scent 

 of the black cherry betrays its presence among the trees ; 

 though but for its scent we should not have distinguished 

 it from among its loftier compeers of the \^ood. 



Is it the gummy odor of the sweet birch that is so 



