RUTS

To the right the summer dawn wakes the leaves and the mists and the noises in this corner of the park, and the left-hand banks hold in their violet shadows the thousant swift ruts of the wet road. Wonderland procession! Yes, truly: floats covered with animals of gilded wood, poles and bright bunting, to the furious gallop of twenty dappled circus horses, and children and men on their most fantastic beasts; — twenty rotund vehicles, decorated with flags and flowers like the coaches of old or in fairy tales, full of children all dressed up for a suburban pastorale. Even coffins under their somber canopies lifting aloft their jet-black plumes, bowling along to the trot of huge mares, blue and black.