ir
vibrates with wordless promises, calls, messages, beckonings; and
fairy-tales are told by all the whispering leaves.

Yet though the open season is now secure, it is not yet settled. No
chance of a relapse into the winter's death, but plenty of change in
the unfolding of the summer's life. There are still caprices and
wayward turns in nature's moods; cold nights when the frost-elves are
hovering in the upper air; windy mornings which shake and buffet the
tree-tassels and light embroidered leaves; sudden heats of tranquil
noon through which the sunlight pours like a flood of eager love,
pressing to create new life.

Birds are still mating; and quarrelling, too. Their songs, their cries
of agitation and expectancy, their call notes, their lyrical
outpourings of desire are more varied and more copious than ever. All
day long they are singing, and every hour on the wing, coming up from
the southward, passing on to the northward, fluttering through the
thickets, exploring secret places, choosing homes and building nests.
In every coppice there is a running to and fro, a creeping, a
scampering, and a leaping of wild creatures. At the roots of the bushes
and weeds and sedges, in the soft recesses of the moss, and through the
intricate tangle of withered grass-blades pierced with bright-green
shoots, there is a manifold stir of insect life. In the air millions of
gauzy wings are quivering, swarms of ethereal, perishable creatures
rising and falling and circling in mystical dances of joy. Fish are
leaping along the stream. The night breeze trembles with the shrill,
piercing chorus of the innumerable hylas.

Late trees, like the ash, the white oak, the butternut, are still
delaying to put forth their full foliage; veiled in tender, transparent
green, or flushed with faint pink, they stand as if they were waiting
for a set time; and the tiny round buds on the laurels, clustered in
countless umbels of bright rose among the dark green, glistening
leaves, are closed, hiding their perfect beauty until the day
appointed. It is the season of the unfulfilled desire, the eager hope,
the coming surprise. To-day the world is beautiful; but to-morrow, next
day--who knows when?--something more beautiful is coming, something
new, something perfect. This is the lure of wild nature between the
lupin and the laurel.

At such a season it is hard to stay at home. The streets all seem to
lead into the country, and one longs to follow their l