NEWS OF SPRING 

 tions in ragged clothes. They come 

 from very far, from the land of fog and 

 frost and wind. They are aliens, sullen 

 and distrustful. They have not yet 

 learned the limpid speed, not adopted 

 the delightful customs of the azure. 

 They refused to believe in the promises 

 of the sky and suspefted the caresses 

 of the sun which, from early dawn, 

 covers them with a mantle of silkier and 

 warmer rays than that with which July 

 loaded their shoulders in the precarious 

 summers of their native land. It made 

 no difference: at the given hour, when 

 snow was falling a thousand miles 

 away, their trunks shivered, and, de- 

 spite the bold averment of the grass and 

 a hundred thousand flowers, despite the 



