COUNTRY LIFE
Summer's Lease The meadows are very green and where the flax was laid out in spring broad lines of lighter green have sprung up and are now blue lines of flower. On the hedges the holly-berries are bright yellow, In thick clusters, and then after some days of sun turn a warm flushed orange. Honeysuckle is now paler than the light bushy straw that is caught up on tall twigs and branches, wherever wagons have passed, and is much the colour of stray plumes of meadowsweet io the dykes. The hop-fields are empty. When rain comes it is soft and straight and the oaks are black in the dark air, but the lemon brightness of fallen willow-leaves on the light green grass is more vivid than it was on days of sun. The first sound of robin tong over the soft fall of windless rain is very sharp and pure, but the swallows have not gone and it is only in the early morning and again in the evening, when the pheasants are croaking down to rest in the woods where the first small olive sweet chestnuts are beginning to fall, that it seems like the end of summer.
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