1 66 My Favourite Summer- Houses. 



GOLDFINCH. 



and our presence seemed to create a panic of disorder 

 and dismay among its denizens. Butterflies and beetles 



vied with each other 

 in brilliancy of colour 

 up in that solitude, 

 and lovely birds were 

 there, and even the 

 water-wagtail by the 

 tiny stream seemed 

 lovely. The wood 

 was literally carpeted 

 with fir-needles, and 

 with cones of former 

 seasons now dry and 

 sapless, and ever at the foot of trees we came on fungi 

 that showed like gems and pearls. 



We gathered and gathered fir-cones till the sun fell, 

 and then returned in the soft twilight, when the mantle 

 of grey was falling over all, and the glow-worms were 

 hanging out their lamps on the hill- 

 sides. We were healthily tired, 

 but we had our prize of cones 

 wherewith to make our much- 

 wished for ornaments, and we went 

 to bed arid dreamed of that wood, with its shy and lovely 

 ever-active denizens — dreamt that we roved by still 

 more unfrequented and erratic ways than we had that 

 day -traversed, lost our bearings, and ourselves were 

 lost, and went hopelessly from point to point, leaping 

 over tiny streams flowing through miles of fir and pine 

 in endless avenues and glades, till at last we sank 

 exhausted on a bed of fern and dreamt — a dream 

 within a dream — of a hill-top, with fairies in circles 

 on it, like circles of light, into which we were led, and 



GLOW-WORM. 



