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It is delightful to picture the commotion in the fernlike seclusion which enveloped the women of the Hawthorne household when this note was opened and read. Squirrels aroused, owls awakened, foxes startled, would have sympathized.
Even the grass upon the nearer bank was unearthly lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip a brilliant flower violet or yellow or carmine or blue making as gorgeous a sward as human imagination might conceive. But the life! It teemed. The tall, fernlike trees were alive with monkeys, snakes, and lizards. Huge insects hummed and buzzed hither and thither.
When she stretched out she had a vague, delicious sensation that that was the end of Helen Rayner, and she was glad. Above her, through the lacy, fernlike pine-needles, she saw blue sky and a pale star just showing. Twilight was stealing down swiftly. The silence was beautiful, seemingly undisturbed by the soft, silky, dreamy fall of water.
Southernwood formed fernlike masses here and there; dwarf tansy made the edging, together with the low, yellow-flowered musk, which Aunt Lavinia, now quite up in such things, declared to be a "musk-scented mimulus!" whatever that may be! Stocks, sweet sultan, and tall wands of evening primrose graded this border up to another shrubbery.
In the distance he saw the torrents of fiery lava from the volcanoes reflected in the sky, and faintly heard their thunderous crashes, while the fire-flies twinkled unconcernedly in the hollow, and the night winds swayed the fernlike branches.
Many of the fernlike forms, however, have distinct affinities with the cycads, of which they may be the ancestors, and some bear seeds and must be classed as gymnosperms. Dense thickets, like cane or bamboo brakes, were composed of thick clumps of CALAMITES, whose slender, jointed stems shot up to a height of forty feet, and at the joints bore slender branches set with whorls of leaves.
It was dark inside. The host took a shell and, filling it with liquid from a well, carelessly sprinkled the sandy floor of the interior. A greenish, phosphorescent light gradually spread to the furthest limits of the cavern, and continued to illuminate it for the whole time they were there. There was no furniture. Some dried, fernlike leaves served for couches.
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