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Almonds flower in December, and peas and beans are often gathered at Christmas. At Cannosa the date-palm ripens its fruit, and flowers are always to be seen. The Euphorbia Dendroides grows as high as in Crete, and rosemary bushes are frequently up to the shoulder of a man. In August the Syrian hibiscus is violet-red and the scarlet-red arbutus fruit hangs till Christmas.

"The chief product of the country is coffee, which is grown in great quantities on the hills, but brought down as it ripens, when it is collected by the Bugis merchants for their yearly shipments. The yearly produce is stated to be 2000 coyans or 80,000 peculs.

"Every thing has its secret spring," said the official, "and wine is the secret of joy." "Now you, my lord keeper of the seal." "Wine seals the door on discontent, and locks the gates on sorrow." "That it does, that it certainly does! Now the governor of Hermothis, the oldest of all the company." "Wine ripens especially for us old folks, and not for you young people."

The beauty of to-day becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. After the first year, married people rarely think of each other's features, whether they be classically beautiful or otherwise.

It is lulled for awhile, the everlasting war which is in heaven, the battle of Iran and Turan, of the children of light and of darkness, of Michael and his angels against Satan and his fiends; the battle which slowly and seldom, once in the course of many centuries, culminates and ripens into a day of judgment, and becomes palpable and incarnate; no longer a mere spiritual fight, but one of flesh and blood, wherein simple men may choose their sides without mistake, and help God's cause not merely with prayer and pen, but with sharp shot and cold steel.

An elevated region called by the Quichuas the Puna, or "the uninhabited," must be described. A scanty vegetation covers these vast plains. Man can with difficulty breathe on them, or produce the means of existence. Barley, though cultivated, seldom ripens; the chief plant which grows to maturity being the maca, which has tuberous roots, and is used like the potato.

In these sunny climes the bud blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day. With my companions, however, the case was different. The Teniente could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked.

We inhabit a dead ember swimming wide in the blank of space, dizzily spinning as it swims, and lighted up from several million miles away by a more horrible hell-fire than was ever conceived by the theological imagination. Yet the dead ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place; and the reverberation of this hell-fire ripens flower and fruit and mildly warms us on summer eves upon the lawn.

A bare ledge of coral first appears, just at the surface; it arrests floating substances, weeds, trees, etcetera; soon the sea-birds begin to resort there; by the decay of vegetable and animal matter a thin soil gradually covers the foundation of coral; a cocoa-nut is drifted upon it by the winds, or the currents of the sea; it takes root, springs up, its fruit ripens and falls, and in a few years the whole new-formed island is covered with waving groves."

This is the sort of courage which ripens late in life and of course Mrs. Fyne was of mature years for all her unwrinkled face. She looked round the room, told me positively that I was very comfortable there; to which I assented, humbly, acknowledging my undeserved good fortune. "Why undeserved?" she wanted to know. "I engaged these rooms by letter without asking any questions.