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You see my young master, or my young mistress, poring over one of their spiders' insides with a magnifying-glass; or you meet one of their frogs walking downstairs without his head and when you wonder what this cruel nastiness means, you are told that it means a taste in my young master or my young mistress for natural history.
One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window.
The little village slept peacefully along the river's bank; not a light was to be seen in any of the shadowy houses. A chorus of frogs from the marshes sounded shrilly through the quiet.
The seventh sons of seventh sons have remarkable powers of insight; people with a certain sort of ear commit crimes of violence; people with red hair have souls of fire; all democratic socialists are trustworthy persons; all people born in Ireland have vivid imaginations and all Englishmen are clods; all Hindoos are cowardly liars; all curly-haired people are good-natured; all hunch-backs are energetic and wicked, and all Frenchmen eat frogs.
Outside nothing is heard beyond the cry of a stray florican, or guinea-fowl, which has lost her mate, or the hoarse croaking of the frogs in the pool hard by, or the song of the crickets which seems to lull the day to rest; inside our camp are heard the gurgles of the gourd pipes as the men inhale the blue ether, which I also love.
Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night.
The eggs of the birds are in a table case and arranged like the birds. The British reptiles are all collected in the upper part of one case, including toads; frogs; and lizards. The British fish occupy the remainder of the wall cases.
Standing on the terrace, Calvert could see the marble nymph through the mist of spray flung upon her from the hideous gaping mouths of the gilded frogs lying along the edge of the basin. 'Twas the story of Jupiter's wrath against the Lyceans which the sculptor had told, and Calvert remembered it out of his Ovid.
Four pipes, reverentially inhaled ... it was almost too much, for a mere dilettante. But the mystery of the frogs, the when and where of it, was solved. Slowly and benignly the memories travelled back, building themselves into a vision so clear-cut and elaborate withal, that I might have been holding it, as one holds some engraving or miniature, in my hand.
Our beds were placed in a verandah, merely covered with mats at night; our heads only guarded by mosquito curtains, though we could hear the venomous insects buzzing outside. As I put my head on the pillow before going to sleep, the sound of the low cooing of doves came up out of the forest, while the tree frogs piped out their shrill notes.
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