Yesterday was a day of great and really glaring heat here in Oxfordshire, as I found quite to my discomfort in the course of a midday drive over the hills. Little was stirring in the hedgerows, even the yellow-hammer and corn-bunting betaking themselves to silence and shelter. The grass was already deep by the roadside, and in a few days only the year seemed to have passed from chill spring to lavish summer. Cherry, pear, and apple are now in full bloom together in my orchard, though the fragile cherry will lose its perfection only too rapidly in the sudden heat; we had hoped to enjoy it for another week at least. Thunder has been rumbling most of the morning, and the clouds, swiftly and yet imperceptibly drifting and swinging in what seemed a windless air, have been gathering darkness and volume. Rain is even now beginning to fall - and though the calendar is far from summer yet, it is the first summer rain, dropping warm on the hot dust of the garden beds and walks and filling the air with a delicious freshness and fragrance. The thrushes are down upon the grass already, beating their huge finds into manageable morsels for their young; and all seedlings and all long-stemmed flowers, who were asking only a little encouragement, will respond visibly as the moisture reaches them. Most of all the asparagus. If we have manured it as we should have done, it will grow inches to-night, and new heads will appear faster than we can cut them.
