26 HOME AND GARDEN 



from outside in the late afternoon light it might be 

 the mouth of a black-dark tunnel, so deep and heavy 

 is the gruesome gloom. And indeed it is very dark, 

 and in its depths strangely silent. It is like a place 

 of the dead, and as if the birds and small wood beasts 

 were forbidden to enter, for none are to be seen or 

 heard. But about the middle of this sombre wood 

 there is a slight clearing ; a little more light comes 

 from above, and I see by the side of the track on 

 the hitherto unbroken carpet of dull dead-brown, 

 some patches and even sheets of a vivid green, 

 and quantities of delicate white bloom. And the 

 sight of this sudden picture of daintiest loveliness, 

 of a value all the greater for its gloomy environ- 

 ment, fills the heart with lively joy and abounding 

 thankfulness. 



It is the Wood-Sorrel, tenderest and loveliest of 

 wood plants. The white flower in the mass has a 

 slight lilac tinge ; when I look close I see that this 

 comes from a fine veining of reddish-purple colour 

 on the white ground. White seems a vaguely- 

 indefinite word when applied to the colouring of 

 flowers ; in the case of this tender little blossom the 

 white is not very white, but about as white as the 

 lightest part of a pearl. The downy stalk is flesh- 

 coloured and half-transparent, and the delicately- 

 formed calyx is painted with faint tints of dull green 

 edged with transparent greenish buff, and is based 



