Garden flowers, sweet budding wonders*" 



JEAN INGELOW. 



FEBRUARY 



T LOVE these days of ending Winter, when the growing light 

 of lengthening day makes the air musical with the birds' 

 sylvan melodies. The mornings yet open mist-enfolded, and 

 have all the appearance of mid-winter that one almost expects 

 a day of shadowless grey. But no ! The blushing sun is 

 soon seen to be piercing the gloom which is fast vanishing. 

 The birds are the first to tell of ending Winter, for close at 

 hand is the bridal-day of the birds St. Valentine's Day and 

 St. Valentine's Spring. What, too, betokens more Spring's 

 nearness than the gentle showers interleaved with bright sun- 

 shine? You may have watched these February showers, 

 when the sky is of one tint, and the beautiful pictures their 

 endings paint when a great gap of blue is seen at last, and all 

 in a moment the clouds seem to be broken up into huge 

 portions, wandering away, masses of foam, the tint of 

 tarnished silver ! These and countless signs the snowdrops 

 in the border, the frilled aconite beneath the laurustinus tell 

 of hastening, ending Winter ! 



Little clusters of starry leaflets scatter the hedgerow banks 

 to-day with patches of bright green, and many seeds have 

 burst their Winter bonds, each sending out a pair of oval 

 leaflets like outstretched wings airily poised ; they are the 

 dainty stitchwort and goose-grass, that hang the hedges with 

 graceful draperies throughout the year's most beautiful time. 

 The first shy leaf-buds are out upon the hawthorn, and 

 Winter's barrenness will soon be forgotten : all its ruin 



