THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 47 



ing valley that reaches far out and away. What 

 floods on floods of beauty fairly steep the earth 

 and feed the richer life of mountain and valley 

 for fruitage. The fields are everywhere em- 

 broidered with buttercups and daisies, other 

 flowers are waving "red, white and blue" above 

 the dark grass, taking in color and breathing 

 out the very breath of angelic fragrance. The 

 wild flowers, bold and hardy and sweet lie at 

 our feet and lure us to pluck and sniff ; they suc- 

 ceed. Song Sparrows do love to sing at the 

 noon hour, possibly because they have few or 

 no rivals at that hour, and how delicious their 

 songs. 



Instinctively we catch the poetic spirit and 

 personify books and rivers and trees and flow- 

 ers, and give them an individuality like our 

 own, and talk to them and evoke from them 

 choicest reminiscence of subtlest poetry. Here 

 begins the Lepeyre, but how and where does it 

 end? What interests does it awaken and de- 

 velop and foster? Who can tell its history? 

 For long, long centuries it has been flowing 

 endlessly on doing generous work and pouring 

 its waters into the sea. But what a ministry 

 it has in its fifty miles ; what farms it irrigates, 

 what trees along its banks it nourishes, what 

 fish live in it and what- boats glide over it, what 



