And sweet it is by lonely meres To sit, with heart and soul awake, Where water-lilies lie afloat, Each anchored like a fairy boat Amid some fabled elfin lake: To see the birds flit to and fro Along the dark-green reedy edge. MARY HOWITT. September is a much-abused month. Many people assert that it is the most unpleasant and unhealthy season of the year. Malarial and muggy though it is, September scarcely merits all the evil epithets that are applied to it. The truth is that, after the torrid days of the hot weather and the humid heat of the rainy season, the European is thoroughly weary of his tropical surroundings, his vitality is at a low ebb, he is languid and irritable, thus he complains bitterly of the climate of September, notwithstanding the fact that it is a distinct improvement on that of the two preceding months. In the early part of the month the weather differs little from that of July and August. The days are somewhat shorter and the sun's rays somewhat less powerful, in consequence the average temperature is slightly lower. Normally the rains cease in the second half of the month. Then the sky resumes the fleckless blueness which characterises it during the greater part of the year. The blue of the sky is more pure and more intense in September than at other times, except during breaks in the monsoon, because the rain has washed from the atmosphere the myriads of specks of dust that are usually suspended in it. The cessation of the rains is followed by a period of steamy heat. As the moisture of the air gradually diminishes the temperature rises. But each September day is shorter than the one before it, and, hour by hour, the rays of the sun part with some of their power. Towards the end of the month the nights are cooler than they have been for some time. At sunset the village smoke begins to hang low in a diaphanous cloud--a sure sign of the approaching cold weather. The night dews are heavy. In the morning the blades of grass and the webs of the spiders are bespangled with pearly dewdrops. Cool zephyrs greet the rising sun. At dawn there is, in the last days of the month, a touch of cold in the air.