Toward the end of our long cloudless summer, after most other flowers have stolen away, Mother Nature marshals her great order of CompositÆ for a last rally; and they come as welcome visitants to fill the places of our vanished summer friends.

Asters and goldenrods, grindelias, lessingias, and the numerous tarweeds, with their cheerful blossoms, relieve the sober browns of sun-dried hill-slopes and meadows, or fringe with color our roadsides and salt marshes.

But even these late-comers weary after a time, and one by one disappear, till there comes a season when, without flowers, Nature seems to be humbled in sackcloth and ashes. The dust lies thick upon roadside trees, a haze hangs like a veil in the air, and the sun beats down with fierce, continued glare.

As this wears on day after day, a certain vague expectancy creeps gradually over the face of things—a rapt, mysterious aspect, foreboding change. One day there is a telltale clarity in the atmosphere. Later, the sky darkens by degrees, and a dull, leaden hue spreads over the vault of heaven. Nature mourns, and would weep. Her heart is full to bursting; still the tears come not. The winds spring up and blow freshly over the parched land. A few hard-wrung drops begin to fall, and at length there closes down a thoroughgoing shower. The flood-gates are opened at last; the long tension is over, and we breathe freely once more.

During this first autumn rain, those of us who are so fortunate as to live in the country are conscious of a strange odor pervading all the air. It is as though Dame Nature were brewing a vast cup of herb tea, mixing in the fragrant infusion all the plants dried and stored so carefully during the summer.

When the clouds vanish after this baptismal shower, everything is charmingly fresh and pure, and we have some of the rarest of days. Then the little seeds, harbored through the long summer in Earth's bosom, burst their coats and push up their tender leaves, till on hillside and valley-floor appears a delicate mist of green, which gradually confirms itself into a soft, rich carpet—and all the world is in verdure clad. Then we begin to look eagerly for our first flowers.