L T Meade

Polly L T Meade

It was an intensely hot July day-not a cloud appeared in the high blue vault of the sky; the trees, the flowers, the grasses, were all motionless, for not even the gentlest zephyr of a breeze was abroad; the whole world seemed lapped in a sort of drowsy, hot, languorous slumber. Even the flowers bowed their heads a little weariedly, and the birds after a time ceased singing, and got into the coolest and most shady parts of the great forest trees. There they sat and talked to one another of the glorious weather, for they liked the heat, although it made them too lazy to sing. It was an open plain of country, and although there were clumps of trees here and there, great clumps with cool shade under them, there were also acres and acres of common land on which the sun beat remorselessly. This land was covered with heather, not yet in flower, and with bracken, which was already putting on its autumn glory of yellow and red. Neither the bracken nor the heather minded the July heat, but the butterflies thought it a trifle uncomfortable, and made for the clumps of trees, and looked longingly and regretfully at what had been a noisy, babbling little brook, but was now a dry and stony channel, deserted even by the dragon-flies.