The sun drops lower behind the hill; rabbits peep out from beneath the brambles, then make for the hummocky field that adjoins my cabbages, the field where the big oaks stretch wide arms over soft, green, luscious grass—Offa’s Oaks we have named these ancient giants, because they border Offa’s Dyke; and they have so often described to the more youthful birch trees the time when they saw Offa, King of Mercia, come marching past in 765 A.D., that at length they have actually come to believe they were alive and flourishing in his day! We humour their age by pretending that it was so. At last the sun disappears, flaming to the last in crimson and gold, orange and red. The breeze gets lustier after the sun has gone under, and a squirrel comes scampering head first down a tall fir-tree, in search of a delicious toadstool that he sometimes finds at its base. Pheasants strut up out of the coppice, and roam about the pasture. Imperceptibly, you know not whence it comes, there steals over the earth the cool, refreshing scent of dew-drenched bracken, mingling with the sweet wistful evening incense of some late honeysuckle. And as you watch the fading after-glow of pink and saffron, sea-green and tawny-rose, you sense that in some mysterious way the face of the garden has entirely changed. Gone is the fire of the scarlet geraniums; lost is the vermilion of the nasturtiums; even the sunflowers hang their heads, and the hollyhocks have turned off their lights. The marigolds have closed their eyes, and the eschscholtzias have folded up their brave flowers, the tired little heads bowing over, thankful for this respite. Then, as the montbretias toll the Angelus from crowds of golden throated bells, the evening primroses, silently, gratefully, open a thousand blossoms and bathe the garden in a wondrous gleam. Such a clear, clean yellow it is; so quiet and yet so penetrating; it seems in some strange way to hold the radiance of heaven and focus it on the sleeping Flower-patch, subduing all that would strike a glaring note, hiding the ragged deficiencies of fading leaves and withering seed-pods. By day one scarcely noticed the straggling plants at all, save perhaps to remark on their rather shabby appearance. But now they shine from terraces and wall-tops; from crannies in the rough stone steps they send up tall shafts, bearing aloft their evening lamps; about the garden beds, among the currant bushes, at the edge of the gravel walk, between the stones in the paved path, wherever they can find root-room, they have taken hold—for they were ever wanderers, and given to exploring the farthermost corner of any garden wherein they have made themselves at home. * * * * *