flowers, great sleepy, languid lilies, to do him honour and deck his breast. It is a relief to look away at the forget-me-nots, with their innocent candid eyes, that look straight into mine, saying as plain as they can speak, "Do not forget me!"
A bee-orchis lifts itself out of the hedge, straight and tall, with its absurd resemblance to the insect, as though it had alighted freshly on the flower, and been frozen there, retaining its own vivid colours. Hard by, the foxgloves rise with a ragged yet stately stoop. I wonder if ever at night their speckled bells ring out a dainty peal of music learned in Foxglove land? The reeds stand round, tall and bare; with their long stalks and olive-brown spikes, they look too obstinate to shiver and shake; yet a curse lies upon them—for was not one of their number placed in the Victim's hand in direct mockery as a sceptre? Yonder, in the pale blue blossoms of the ivy-leaved bell-flower, lies a naughty, sleepy little insect which Linnæus named Florissimus, from its love of sleeping in flowers. He must be a luxurious dainty little Sybarite and a happy, to be able to choose his couch of red, white, pink, or blue, at will; while we, poor mortals, have to seek our dull four-posters night after night.
I pick up my sun-bonnet, put it on, and lean over the stile that lies between me and the corn-field, that is turning brighter and more golden day by day under the sun's fierce beams. The scarlet poppy-heads, gorgeous vagrants, with their leaves as freshly crinkled as though they had but just left Nature's laundry, and imperiously at me, saying, "Gather me! gather me!" The corn-cockle, pride of the harvest-field, and abomination of the farmer, cries, "I am handsomest, pick me!" The field knautia lifts her insolent head high above the corn, seeming to say, "See how much higher a parasite can climb than her master!" The pheasant's-eye, or the flower of Adonis (over which, as the story runs, the life-blood of Adonis gushed, staining its white petals
