of its petals.

The coming of the ears of wheat forms an era and a date, a fixed point
in the story of the summer. It is then that, soon after dawn, the clear
sky assumes the delicate and yet luscious purple which seems to shine
through the usual atmosphere, as if its former blue became translucent
and an inner and ethereal light of colour was shown. As the sun rises
higher the brilliance of his rays overpowers it, and even at midsummer
it is but rarely seen.

The morning sky is often, too, charged with saffron, or the blue is
clear, but pale, and the sunrise might be watched for many mornings
without the appearance of this exquisite hue. Once seen, it will ever be
remembered. Upon the Downs in early autumn, as the vapours clear away,
the same colour occasionally gleams from the narrow openings of blue
sky. But at midsummer, above the opening wheatears, the heaven from the
east to the zenith is flushed with it.

At noonday, as the light breeze comes over, the wheat rustles the more
because the stalks are stiffening and swing from side to side from the
root instead of yielding up the stem. Stay now at every gateway and lean
over while the midsummer hum sounds above. It is a peculiar sound, not
like the querulous buzz of the honey, nor the drone of the humble bee,
but a sharp ringing resonance like that of a tuning-fork. Sometimes, in
the far-away country where it is often much louder, the folk think it
has a threatening note.

Here the barley has taken a different tint now the beard is out; here
the oats are straggling forth from their sheath; here a pungent odour of
mustard in flower comes on the air; there a poppy faints with broad