Two months passed, and spring deepened into summer.  The gold of the wattle, which had covered the hills when the strangers came to Gippsland, faded; its tiny yellow balls floated down on the surface of the river, carpeting it with a rippling sheet of gold, until the current took them away to sea.  The hot winds breathed upon the creamy tangles of clematis, and turned them to hanging masses of dull brown.  The tiny orchids in the gullies sighed for the wet spring, drooped, and died. But the convolvulus and the purple sarsaparilla went on blossoming bravely, climbing through the densest masses of the scrub; and the tiny eucalyptus capsules burst, flinging their wee caps afar, and releasing bunches of perfumed stamens, so that all the air was filled with sweetness.  Out on the hills the grass turned yellow and the ground was hard.  But the gullies were always cool, their rich earth moist under the great green tree-ferns, about whose roots the little streams gurgled, winding away to the lake.