H Ibill IPaeture. 53 



bud the outside fold turns down from the top, as 

 regularly as the gummed flap of an envelope. I can 

 never pass this group without plucking one for a 

 souvenir ; long before it is landed in the vase at home 

 its open petals have withered or fallen off. But once 

 in the nourishing water its buds unfold in slow daily 

 succession, and it holds its fairy-like beauty for a week. 



Once past the mulleins, one comes to the peculiar 

 ^lory of this hill pasture, the scattered bushes of the 

 shrubby cinquefoil drawn up in a careless ''open 

 order " over the slope. In some moods one is inclined 

 to criticise this leisurely bush because it takes so much 

 time for its blossoming. The limpid yellow of a 

 few blossoms dots each one of its bunches of green 

 leaves ; but there is always lacking the splendid blaze 

 of tlame which would illumine the field if only they 

 would all burst forth at once. Still, nature's method 

 has its own charm and advantage. Looking over the 

 hillside as it lies one can easily imagine that on the last 

 clear night the midnight stars photographed them- 

 selves in colour upon this green and that the dome 

 of the hill reproduces the concave of the heavens. 



For pathways through this open jungle of shrubby 

 cinquefoil one has choice unlimited. But chiefly the 

 feet are drawn in one of three directions. There is a 

 tempting prospect up the hill to the right, where a 

 lovely elm, with trunk all thick and green with foliage, 

 rises against a background of dense woods, hi the 

 shady afternoon those thickets are so cool, so suggest- 

 ive of ferns and vines, creeping things and things 



