m tree to tree. As for wild quadrupeds, the race is almost passed
away. Far to the North, indeed, the great moose still browses on the
lily-pads, and the shy beaver nibbles them; but here the few lingering
four-footed creatures only haunt, but do not graze upon these floating
pastures. Eyes more favored than ours may yet chance to spy an otter
in this still place; there by the shore are the small footprints of a
mink; that dark thing disappearing in the waters, yonder, a soft mass
of drowned fur, is a "musquash." Later in the season, a mound of earth
will be his winter dwelling-place; and those myriad muscle-shells at
the water's edge are the remnant of his banquets,--once banquets for
the Indians, too.

But we must return to our lilies. There is no sense of wealth like
floating in this archipelago of white and green. The emotions of
avarice become almost demoralizing. Every flower bears a fragrant
California in its bosom, and you feel impoverished at the thought of
leaving one behind. But after the first half-hour of eager grasping,
one becomes fastidious, rather scorns those on which the wasps and
flies have alighted, and seeks only the stainless. But handle them
tenderly, as if you loved them. Do not grasp at the open flower as if
it were a peony or a hollyhock, for then it will come off, stalkless,
in your hand, and you will cast it blighted upon the water; but coil
your thumb and second finger affectionately around it, press the
extended forefinger firmly to the stem below, and with one steady pull
you will secure a long and delicate stalk, fit to twine around the
graceful head of your beloved, as the Hindoo goddess of beauty
encircled with a Lotus the brow of Rama.

Consider the lilies. All over our rural watercourses, at midsummer,
float these cups of snow. They are Nature's symbols of coolness. They
suggest to us the white garments of their Oriental worshippers. They
come with the white roses and prepare the way for the white lilies of
the garden. The white doe of Rylstone and Andrew Marvell's fawn might
fitly bathe amid their beauties. Yonder steep bank slopes down to the
lake-side, one solid mass of pale pink laurel, but, once upon the
water, a purer tint prevails. The pink fades into a lingering flush,
and the white creature floats peerless, set in green without and gold
within. That bright circle of stamens is the very ring with which
Doges once wedded the Adriatic, Venice has lost it, but it dropped
into