Such
a rich chapter it had been when one came to look back on it all! With
illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured! The pageant of the river
bank had marched steadily along, unfolding itself in scene-pictures that
succeeded each other in stately procession. Purple loosestrife arrived early,
shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own
face laughed back at it. Willow-herb, tender and wistful, like a pink sunset
cloud, was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white,
crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one morning the
diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, and one knew,
as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a
gavotte that June at last was here. One member of the company was still
awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies
waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to
life and love. But when meadow-sweet, debonair and odorous in amber jerkin,
moved graciously to his place in the group, then the play was ready to begin and
what a play it had been! Drowsy animals, snug in their holes while wind and
rain were battering at their doors, recalled still keen mornings, an hour
before sunrise, when the white mist, as yet undispersed, clung closely along
the surface of the water; then the shock of the early plunge, the scamper along
the bank, and the radiant transformation of earth, air, and water, when
suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and colour was born and
sprang out of the earth once more. We recalled the languorous siesta of hot
mid-day, deep in green undergrowth, the sun striking through in tiny golden
shafts and spots; the boating and bathing of the afternoon, the rambles along
dusty lanes and through yellow cornfields; the walks in the afternoons when we
would walk
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