They look so dull and dowdy in the spring weather, when the snow
drops and the crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white and
mauve and yellow, and the baby-buds from every branch are peeping with
bright eyes out on the world, and stretching forth soft little leaves toward
the coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold and hard
amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them.
And in the deep full summer-time, when all the rest of nature dons its
richest garb of green, and the roses clamber round the porch, and the grass
waves waist-high in the meadow, and the fields are gay with flowers--they
seem duller and dowdier than ever then, wearing their faded winter\'s dress,
looking so dingy and old and worn.
In the mellow days of autumn, when the trees, like dames no longer
young, seek to forget their aged looks under gorgeous bright-toned robes
of gold and brown and purple, and the grain is yellow in the fields, and the
ruddy fruit hangs clustering from the drooping boughs, and the wooded
hills in their thousand hues stretched like leafy rainbows above the vale--
ah! surely they look their dullest and dowdiest then. The gathered glory
of the dying year is all around them. They seem so out of place among it,
in their somber, everlasting green, like poor relations at a rich man\'s feast.
It is such a weather-beaten old green dress. So many summers\' suns have
blistered it, so many winters\' rains have beat upon it--such a shabby, mean,
old dress; it is the only one they have!