The grass about the margin at this season was a sight to remember long--in a minor sort of way.

Its activity in sucking the moisture from the rich damp sod was almost a process observable by the eye.

The outskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by rounded and hollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercup was a daisy.

The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist brink.

To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened under summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a green--green beside a yellow.