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The day that flashed by on either side had also a festive quality: blue skies heaped with snowy clouds; fields brimmed with breeze-swept grain, green and silver, or streaked with the gold of butter-cups; swift streams and the curves of summer foliage. It was a country remote, wooded and pastoral, and Althea, a connoisseur in landscapes, was enchanted.
While he sat, watching the contemplative features of the girl in the boat before him, something, in the clear depths of the admiring eyes, struck him; there was an expression of infinite longing over her face, her mouth was drawn into a sad smile, and her hands were folded listlessly on her lap: a few withering daisies and butter-cups, that she had snatched an hour before as they skimmed along the shore, lay carelessly between her fingers, and the loose ties of her broad hat were fluttering on the breeze, under her pretty, upturned chin.
Louise flushed a trifle. A bunch of butter-cups and forget-me-nots was fastened to her girdle, and she had placed a few marguerites in her hair. "Don't laugh at these poor things!" she said, deprecatingly. "I'm so fond of flowers, and we find none growing wild in the cities, you know." Jane Merrick looked at her reflectively. "How old are you, Louise," she asked. "Just seventeen, Aunt."
And day's eyes and butter-cups, cow's lips and crow's feet Were glittering in the sun. She threw down her book, and caught up her crook, And after her sheep did run. She ran, and she ran, and ever as she ran, The grass grew higher and higher; Till over the hill the sun began To set in a flame of fire.
In the Vosges this plant is much used as our own water-cress is in England for a salad, under the name of Cresson de Roche. Its fragile stem and delicate compound leaves, and the early season at which it blossoms, give attraction to this little plant, and make it a favourite with me. The butter-cups are not yet in bloom; but the daisies!
Proceeding northward, they soon found their progress obstructed by drift ice, which forced them, after two days of incessant labour, to seek shelter in the estuary of a river, Nullatartok, where being blocked up, they went on shore, and pitched their tents on a beautiful valley, enamelled with potentilla aurea in full bloom, resembling a European meadow covered with butter-cups.
I used to know some once, with broad, full chests; plump, round limbs; feet that knew how to run, and hands that could venture to go through an entry without drawing on a kid glove, blithe, merry little children, who got up and went to bed with the sun; who fed on fresh, new milk, and stepped on daisies, and knew more about butter-cups and clover blossoms, than parties and fashions, little guileless children, who danced and jumped and laughed for the same reason the birds sing because they couldn't help it, who didn't care any more than the birds, whether their plumage was red, green, yellow or brown, so that they could dart and skim and hop where they liked, warble when they had a mind, and fold their wings where they pleased, when weary.
It looks so beautiful in the middle field in the spring, when the dandelions blow; and the strawberries blossom; and the butter-cups wave in the wind; and the bobolinks light on the red clover and sing; there would be more comfort in knowing it was all ours as we enjoyed the sight!" "But we cannot have everything, Fanny, as we wish in this world," said Mrs. Fabens. "Let it go.
"Here are some fixings for it," returning with a lapful of silver acorns and oak leaves, "unless you would prefer butter-cups.
Grandmamma says a hen is not esteemed a very wise bird. We went out of the farm-yard into the orchard. O what a sweet place grandmamma's orchard is! There were pear-trees, and apple-trees, and cherry-trees, all in blossom. These blossoms were the prettiest flowers that ever were seen, and among the grass under the trees there grew butter-cups, and cowslips, and daffodils, and blue-bells.
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