crimson) looks up invitingly; the pansies, "three faces under one hood," as the country folk call them, from their lowly seat at the roots of the corn, please the eye with their modest velvet-eyed beauty. And, since I know and love them every one, I dash in amongst the corn and gather my hands full. A scentless, bright-hued, vagabond cluster they make; for they are but saucy parasites, that love to creep about and hamper the knees of the strong, beneficent grain, as all useless, gaudy things, ever do about the stalwart and brave. Already the scarlet pimpernel—the only wild flower that dares dispute the poppy's pre-eminence in colour, has closed its leaves, for it is past three o'clock. I wonder how it always knows the time so exactly, when human people's watches are so often out of gear? The intolerable heat stops my somewhat unreasonable speculations, so I hastily retreat to the brook, and there weave my flowers into a garland, with many a nodding grass and leaf between, idly, carelessly, for no other reason than that my hands are idle, and the flowers are pretty playthings. When I have finished it I turn it round and round, and marvel whether Ophelia's could by any possibility, have looked any madder? Poor lost Ophelia!
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers."
Whose drowned face comes to us so freshly across the dead centuries, while the echo of her sweet voice singing, "Lord, we know what we are; but we know not what we may be," lives in our hearts with all our household words and treasures. I always think of Ophelia as a slender maiden, with far-away dreamy grey eyes, that saw Death beckoning to her, in strange and lovely guise, down among the rushes, and to whom she went gaily decked with flowers, as a bride to her bridegroom. I wonder if Ophelia had long hair, and whether it was golden, or yellow, or brown like mine? It
