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MUSINGS ON FLOWERS. 21 
The lady who has been absent during the fare- 
well month of summer may return to the scene 
of her laughs and joys, and find the street, the 
house, the chamber, the same ; the circle of 
friends unbroken by a death or a sorrow ; no 
trace, in the teeming life around her, of time's 
changes. But that evidence will meet the eye in 
the flower garden. The w^eeds that have thick- 
ened in the alley have choked the choicest flower. 
The moss tufts have withered with the heat of 
August. The lily waves its graceful leaf faintly 
over its fellows. The dahlia, which her " sweet 
and cunning hand " had reared, and cherished 
with affection, has fallen beneath the deep shades 
of the growing vine that has frowned away its life 
and its radiant colors. The place is more changed 
than any other. It is beautiful but for its treasured 
memories still beautiful, though clothed in the 
drooping fall robes of the year ; but clear it is, that 
" Time's effacing fingers 
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers." 
Here^ then, where delicate taste directed the cul- 
ture in May ; where soft hands caressed the June 
rosebud, and brushed away the early dew ; a sooth- 
ing picture of melancholy rises in the view. The 
maiden laugh is suppressed. But why should it 
be ? What though 
" The shadows of departed hours 
Hang dim upon her early flowers ! " 
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