164 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



partly fallen, their beauty had departed. So 

 soon ! Spring, scarcely sure of its standing 

 as a season, is marked with the first scars of 

 death. Not far away I saw a dandelion gone to 

 seed. Truly if the winter is tempered by many 

 a suggestion of the renewal of life, the spring is 

 branded with many a reminder of the coming of 

 death. Life and death ; what are they but the 

 swinging of a pendulum, the one as sure to 

 succeed the other as the other is certain to give 

 place to the one. Each, while it lasts, contains 

 an ever increasing germ of the other. Neither 

 can be final so long as law exists. 



