THE summer pasaed on. Sanctis did not return, and she gave bim no thought. The wild flowers ceased to bloom ; the torrid heats descended on the earth ; under the passing rain storma the hot soil seethed and smoked ; the Serpent-bearer gleamed nightly in the south- east, and from Perseus shooting-stars fell across the heavens.

The height of summer bere is the weird, the oppressive, the ghastly season of the year ; rarely even has the sunset beauty, the red rayless ball too often lenda but a red, dull hectic to the sun and sky. The chanting tree-frogs are happy, and ali the snakea and the heat-loving lizarda ; nothing else is.

The panting fos hangs his tongiie ont