328 POPULAR TALES OF FLOV/ERS 
that the solemn Autumn was at hand ; for a thousand 
varied hues proclaimed that the funeral pyre of Summer 
was kindled, and ail her flowers faded away to the ashy 
grey, which only remains behind, when all her beauty is 
extinguished. 
Then Childhood sallied forth, with merry shout and 
happy heart, and ran, until it was compelled to stop 
through sheer weariness, to and fro among the unnum- 
bered flowers ; shaking off, in its eager flight, the loosened 
silver from the Daisy, and the dusty gold from; the deep 
yellow of the Buttercup. 
Young lovers only numbered the many happy meetings 
they had had together by the days which the milk-white 
Hawthorn remained in blossom, and the many times they 
had heard the song of the cuckoo, while seated beneath 
its fragrant shade. 
Old Age dated the years it had lived by recalling how 
many times it had seen the Wild Rose blow, and wan- 
dered forth to gather the spotted blossoms of the golden 
Co^vslip. 
They kept their records of marriages by the flowers 
’which then bloomed, and the solemn memory of the dead 
by the fragrant blossoms which they showered upon their 
graves. They recalled their joys and sorrows by the sea- 
sons, and dated their success or adversity by the coming 
in or going out of the flowers. Not that the flapping of 
Time’s grey wings sounded the less solemnly upon their 
ears, or the waving of his hoary plumes passed the less 
unnoticed, because they beat only upon a race who re- 
corded his flight by the sleeping and aw^akening of the 
buds. No ! it prepared them for the great change which 
they knew would some day take place ; and they looked 
forw^ard to their journey to another world with a saddened 
pleasure, deepened the more by the remembrance of the 
beautiful flowers they were compelled to leave behind, 
and half fearing that they might never love those so well 
which would bloom for ever in that land of eternal light 
beyond the grave. 
They knew not the empty love in w'hich the heart is no 
partaker — the vow^s which they breathed were intended 
to reach heaven, and to be registered there amid all other 
holy things : for to them the Accusing Spirit was not an 
