FAIR MAIDS OF FEBRUARY 



IN the floral poverty of the early year we lavish 

 admiration on the snowdrop, but it is quite pretty 

 enough to claim a glance even if rivals lay in 

 cohorts around it. Purity could find no more 

 perfect emblem than this chaste little blossom, 

 whose delicacy and temerity in braving what is 

 often the surliest month of the year, excite in us 

 a mixture of emotions in which recognition of 

 pluck is dashed with pity. Daffodils 



come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty ; 



but here is a mere child of a flower, compared 

 with the robust beauty of March, defying the winter 

 as if it were a paragon of hardiness. 



The snowdrop is never seen at its best where 

 it is most often seen in the garden border. Like 

 most flowers which spring from a bulb, its proper 

 place is among grass, and to realize the effect 

 it is capable of producing, one has to see it 

 growing in irregular masses from the sward under 

 old trees. In such a situation as this the flower 

 lives long and multiplies freely, and nothing the 

 year has to show can excel such a family party 



