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Fitly arranged, it gives a bright relief to the superb beauty of the Cardinal-Flowers, the brilliant blue-purple of the Vervain, the pearl-white of the Life-Everlasting, the delicate lilac of the Monkey-Flower, the soft pink and white of the Spiraeas, for the white yet lingers, all surrounded by trailing wreaths of blossoming Clematis.

That is, they would have been so, if you had not been at the sea. Splendors upon splendors have been heaped into this day. Loads of silky plumed corn or even sheaves of cardinal-flowers cannot be compared to the new sunshine and the magnificent air which have filled the earth from early dawn. The brook that became a broad river in the flood of yesterday made our landscape perfect.

On the Roman table was a glass dish of exquisite pond-lilies, which Una brought from the river this morning; and out of the centre of the lilies rose a tall glass of superb cardinal-flowers. On the white table was a glass dish of balsams of every shade of red, from deep crimson through scarlet to pale pink, over to purple and up to white. Una returned to-day from Boston.

He forgot his promise, and down he went to the pond; where he cut his stick, and was whittling the end, when he saw a boat by the shore. It was untied, and oars lay in it, as if waiting for some one to come and row out. "I'll just take a little pull across, and get those cardinal-flowers for Polly," he said; and went to the boat.

Three miles inland, as I remember, we found the hearthstones of a vanished settlement; then we passed a swamp with cardinal-flowers; then a cathedral of noble pines, topped with crow's-nests.

She never came to the house without bringing flowers to the latter not only beautiful exotics from the florists, but wreaths of clematis, bunches of meadow-rue from her rambles, and water-lilies and cardinal-flowers from boating excursions up the Moodna Creek and the secluded invalid enjoyed her brilliant beauty and piquant ways as if she had been a rare flower herself.

Or suppose that a few friends were coming to supper, and there were no flowers for the supper-table. We could easily have bought them in the village. But it was far more to our liking to take the children up the brook, and come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle and blue flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers.

Clustering vines of wild grape hang its wooded shores with a tapestry of the South and the Rhine. The pickerel-weed marks with blue spikes of flowers the points where small tributary brooks flow in, and along the dusky windings of those brooks cardinal-flowers with a scarlet splendor paint the tropics upon New England green.

In other places the banks are almost on a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark nooks among the shrubbery.

As Ben grew older, he was observed to take vast delight in looking at the hues and forms of nature. For instance, he was greatly pleased with the blue violets of spring, the wild roses of summer, and the scarlet cardinal-flowers of early autumn.