ren, as I find, on thinking of
it, they have always been to me. Lowly and trustful, sweet and frail,
"of such is the kingdom of heaven." They pass away without losing their
innocence. Ere the first heats of summer they are gone.

Yet the autumn, too, has its delicate blooms, though they are
overshadowed and, as it were, put out of countenance by the coarser
growths which must be said to characterize the harvest season. Nothing
that May puts into her lap is more exquisite than are the purple
gerardias with which August and September embroider the pasture and the
woodland road. They have not the sweet breath of the arbutus, nor even
the faint elusive odor of the violet, but for daintiness of form,
perfection of color, and gracefulness of habit it would be impossible to
praise them too highly. Of our three species, my own favorite is the one
of the narrow leaves (_Gerardia tenuifolia_), its longer and slighter
flower-stems giving it an airiness and grace peculiarly its own. A lady
to whom I had brought a handful the other day expressed it well when she
said, "They look like fairy flowers." They are of my mind in this: they
love a dry, sunny opening in the woods, or a grassy field on the edge of
woods, especially if there be a seldom-used path running through it. I
know not with what human beings to compare them. Perhaps their antitypes
of our own kind are yet to be evolved. But I have before now seen a
woman who might worthily be set in their company,--a person whose sweet
and wise actions were so gracefully carried and so easily let fall as to
suggest an order and quality of goodness quite out of relation to common
flesh and blood.

What a contrast between such lowly-minded, unobtrusive beauties and
egotists like our multitudinous asters and golden-rods! These, between
them, almost take possession of the world for the two or three months of
their reign. They are handsome, and they know it. What is beauty for, if
not to be admired? They mass their tiny blossoms first into solid heads,
then into panicles and racemes, and have no idea of hiding their
constellated brightness under a bushel. "Let your light shine!" is the
word they go on. How eagerly they crowd along the roadside, till the
casual passer-by can see scarce anything else! If he does not see
_them_, it is not their fault.

For myself, I am far from wishing them at all less numerous, or a jot
less forward in displaying their charms. Let there be variety, I say.