radiate back upon the fragrant little flower all
the heat that departs from it. As the snows
disappear, blossoms of other flowers open
which display themselves more boldly, but
they are blanched or nearly so. In the passage
from the last snows of winter to the first
blossoms of spring, the harmony of colour is
preserved—hillsides and orchards are laden
with a delicate white, varied rarely by the
pink upon the almond-trees. Petels of
apple-blossom floating on the wind mimic
the flakes of snow that were so lately
seen. As the warm season advances, colours
deepen until we come to the dark
crimson of autumn flowers and the brownness
of the autumn leaves. This change is
meant not only to be beautiful—it has its
use. Why are the first spring flowers all
white, or nearly white ? Because, when the
winds are still cold and when the sun is only
moderately kind, a flower would be chilled to
death if its heat radiated from it rapidly.
But radiation takes place most freely from
dark colours—from black, from the strongly
defined greens, and blues, and reds. In the
hot weather, flowers and leaves so coloured,
cool themselves more readily of nights, and
form upon their surfaces the healing dew.
In early spring, there is little need of dew
or of facilities for cooling. The delicate
spring flowers are, therefore, of a colour that
is least ready to encourage radiation. For
the same reason—because white substances
give out least freely the heat that they contain
or cover—arctic animals are white as
their native snows. For the same reason,
too, the snow itself is white. When cold becomes
severe, snow falls and hangs like a fur
mantle about the soil. If snow were black,
or red, or blue, it would still let some of the
heat escape which is retained under its
whiteness. The colours, even of men, darken
in hot climates; in the hottest they are made
quite black. Black substances give out their
heat most freely.

In regions subject to a cold almost incessant,
a short summer produces flowers of extremely
vivid colouring. The summer although
short is fierce, and the plants radiate fast that
they may escape destruction. The dark verdure
of the northern pines would cause them
to lose heat with great rapidity. For compensation
they are made to grow in pyramids
that catch a cone of snow so cleverly as to
great-coat them during the hard weather.
Birch trees that grow in the same forests rise
among the pines like silver columns, and they
are not shaped to catch the snow, because
they do not want it. They have their own
light clothing of a brilliant whiteness.

Truly, we need not examine far into the
wealth that is poured out in nature before we
discover that

"Such bounty is no gift of chance."

Will not a study of such works as these
teach boys to reason quite as well as Euclid?
Have we touched, here, upon a kind of study
that should be excluded from the disclipine
of schools? Has it no power to awaken
intellect, to educate the head, the heart, and
the soul ?

THE BLANKSHIRE HOUNDS.

I HAD passed the College, and taken out
my degree; I was M.R.C.S. and M.D. of Edin:
My mother was delighted—my uncle was disgusted.
My mother's ambition was satisfied,
and she felt herself amply repaid for her long
years of shabby stuff gowns and sugarless tea
when my diplomas, framed and glazed, were
hung up in her parlour; while my uncle,
frowning indignantly, asked, " Who would be
fool enough to give a guinea to a whippersnapper
fellow, as pale as a ghost, as thin
as a whipping-post, and without even whiskers?"
He was quite right. I invested the
legacy of my aunt Podsleigh in genteel apartments
and a brass plate in the principal street
of Jennyton. I wore a white cravat, and
walked about with a book seriously bound in
my hand. A carriage I could not afford. It
was before the days of broughams; but no one
came with a fee, and the poor patients—chiefly
old women who had been the round of all
the medical staff in Jennyton—treated me
with almost a patronising air.

Fortunately my uncle—who had quarrelled
with my mother, his sister, because she would
make me a physician—was solicitor and agent
to the Dowager Countess of Bullrush; and,
about the time that my legacy was reduced
to a very minute balance which I feared to
draw out of the Old Jennyton Bank, the young
Earl, who had been brought up on the coddling
principle—two nurses and a governess
until he was thirteen; then a private tutor, and
two grooms, one to ride behind and the other
beside him; three glasses of wine at dinner,
and a select library, chosen by the bishop of
the diocese, the popular Bishop Flam, celebrated                              for his melodious voice and accommodating
opinions—I say the young Earl suddenly
broke out of bounds, first accepted an
invitation from the Bishop's wife's nephew,
the Honourable Frank Fastman, without consulting
the Countess; staid away a fortnight;
returned driving a tandem and smoking a
cigar; and then, after purchasing a stud of
hunters from Mr. Thong, the celebrated dealer,
on credit, accepted the mastership of the
Blankshire Hounds, which had been offered
by a gentleman he met at Mr. Fastman's table,
on the strength of Lord Bullrush having
an estate in that county, which neither he
nor his father had ever seen.

The Dowager had hoped to lead her son
through life in the same pleasant and easy
way that she had led him through the castle
gardens when he was in frock and trousers,
rewarding him from time to time with a
peach or a bunch of grapes. But when
he took to horse-flesh she preached, raved,