view, in the company of the grass flowers to which they are entitled. Every day some new fern uncurls, and this delightful woodland race, with its many families, makes the forests a constant surprise. Some on the sternest heights, where water is scarce, exploit their graceful beauty, as if, said Thoreau, Nature designed in them to show how wonderful a mere leaf might be; some in the darkest marshes, some on the sunny hills,everywhere lavish in varied grace and elegance, the finest bred of all vegetable races.

Such are the gifts of Nature in this wondrous season. Who does not receive and love them is the poorer for his failure. They are an inestimable part of the training of the soul,-the essential, the only, purpose and meaning of the life of earth.

Ο

An Over-Ardent June

N this occasion, much as June is loved, there is a general feeling that she came

steals upon our

in with too much of a bounce. What we have largely loved in June has been the shy, sweet, elusive way with which she slips in, so that she usually has been around, coaxing the roses gently, and suggesting buds to the red clover, and so on, until the conviction of her presence upon our senses with subtle sweetness as the perfume of the syringas, the wild cherries and the grapes follow on the vanishing lilacs and the azaleas. But she arrived in a hustling fashion, this year, taking hold as if she were emulous of July, infuriating the thermometer, and making us want to take off our flesh and sit in our bones, as Sydney Smith said. For the first time in a generation, we desired a little more coolness in June's advances. She was too forward, too forcible. Her Amazonian caresses took our breath away, who wants to make love in such a fever and fret? In fact, if June would give us the cold

shoulder for a bit, we said, we should be relieved. And straightway she gave us just that.

Still, let us reflect, when the heated term assaults us, that some odd hundreds of thousands of years ago, where we now broil, the ice-cap rested a mile deep over Massachusetts—which had not yet been thought of and did not know it. It was even deeper than it is now over Greenland. That was a climate to talk of in these days. How comfortable it must have been !-about 250 degrees or less cooler than Sunday's sunshine and 200 degrees cooler than its shade. It is still cool near the Arctic circle. And the Antarctic continent is an even grander refrigerator. Butter would never melt there, nor meats spoil; and there could be no call for ice-cream, soda water or palm-leaf fans. The interesting narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, as reported by Mr. Poe, is good reading for such a term as the recent. is Dr. Kane's romantic chronicle of his explorations, and the history of the Jeannette, not to mention the tales of the various searches for Sir John Franklin's party and the Peary relief expeditions. It is cool, too, on Kunchin-Jinga, on Popocatepetl and on Cotopaxi. But the snow is not clean on Cotopaxi,-the volcanic dust is too abundant. It is also cold on the moon, but there is no atmosphere at all there, it is said, and even

So

a little hot June atmosphere is better than none at all, that is, better for a race used to breathing through lungs.

Then we might read Kipling, and thank heaven we are not in India. When one fancies himself in that printing office where Kipling met the Man who would be King, or sits with him and the Soldiers Three while Mulvaney, hero that he is, tells tales all night long to keep his comrade from sheer insanity, one feels that there are worse places than New England in a hot June. Or if one likes a change, let him march awhile in the African forest with Stanley, and presently fancy himself going mad as Barttelot did. Or the Death Valley of Arizona is worth contemplating, or Fort Yuma-on leaving which for the infernal regions they say one wants to carry a double outfit of winter clothing. It is all a matter of comparison. When one gets used to it, a temperature in the hundreds is not bad-not positively bad, though it may be superlatively so.

On the whole, it has been very pleasant weather. Things grow, though thoughts dwindle, in the presence of heat. It has been delightful to watch the leaves swelling and the full garniture of the trees developing in the sumptuous warmth. The woods are rich in colour and fragrance. Sit for a moment on a broad ledge and gaze down the