[Illustration: 3. Grass blade with dew deposit--three drops held in suspension on top of blade]
[Illustration: 4. Showing how sharp pointed grasses collect and retain the dew drops, while blunt or broken blades collect none]
[Illustration: 5. Grass-blade holding two drops--dew drop preparing to fall]
[Illustration: 6. Dew drops on grass blade; showing inverted landscape held in drop]
"Everything shone with the dew drops that sparkling and trembling lay Scattered to left and to right, and the webs of the spiders were hung Thickly with pearls and diamonds; light in the wind they swung."
One of the most interesting and instructive phenomena in the lessons of nature is the falling of the dew--a seeming miracle which begins with the setting of the sun, and goes on mysteriously, collecting and distributing its countless exquisite water jewels, all through the long stillness of the night, only to be dispelled again by the heat of the rising sun.
We are more or less familiar, through casual observation, with the varied beauties of the dew. A walk in the country or park, in the early midsummer morning, just after the sun has risen, if possible, will enable you fully to appreciate its charms; especially if the dewfall during the preceding night has been a copious one. Every bit of plant-life and vegetation will sparkle and twinkle in the early sunshine, hung and embellished with millions of glittering jewels. The very smallest grass blade, you will discover, has not been neglected by the Dew Fairy. And even the delicate, gossamer-like spider's web swung from twig to twig or caught among the grasses, is dew laden, and an object of beauty well worthy of consideration.
[Illustration: 7. Spider's web entire: showing manner of collecting dew]
[Illustration: 8. Detail of spider's web dew-laden. Observe the pearl-like strands.]
Happy indeed are you, if you have enjoyed a stroll in an old-fashioned country flower garden in the early morning. No need to dwell upon its charms if you have enjoyed that pleasure, for you will long remember the refreshment and peace which came to you with the close companionship of the great pink, damask roses, their petals still heavy with the night dews; the tall, sentinel-like lilies, cool and fragrant, their cups filled with dewy nectar, which great blundering bees were eagerly plundering; clean-smelling phlox, waist-high, each velvet cluster moist and bent with its weight of dew. Then the beds of gray-green mignonette; and best of all, down in an out-of-the-way corner, a tangle of unobtrusive old-fashioned pinks, where you knelt and buried your face for a moment to inhale their spicy fragrance, and found them doubly sweet and satisfying after their drenching dew bath. While the beds of simples and humbler things, the sage and wormwood, with their silvery leaves heavy with dew, exhaled a pungent, aromatic odour as you brushed them in passing. For the dew had refreshed them and enhanced their dormant spiciness tenfold.