Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/86



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

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

The panting fox hangs his tongue out