132 THE MARCH OF THE SEASONS 



pomegranate were dotted with scarlet flowers. The 

 cape jasmine wore hundreds of her own white favours, 

 whose fragrance forerun the sight. Every breath 

 of air was a new perfume. Roses, an innumerable 

 host, ran a fairy riot about all grounds, and clam- 

 bered from the lowest doorstep to the highest roof. 

 The oleander, wrapped in one great garment of red 

 blossoms, nodded in the sun, and stirred and winked 

 in the faint stirrings of the air. The pale banana 

 slowly fanned herself with her own broad leaf. 

 High up against the intense sky, its hard, burnished 

 foliage glittering in the sunlight, the magnolia 

 spread its dark boughs, adorned with their queenly 

 white flowers. Not a bird nor an insect seemed 

 unmated. The little wren stood and sung to his 

 sitting wife his loud, ecstatic song, made all of 

 her own name, Matilda, Urilda, Lucinda, Belinda, 

 Adaline, Madaline, Caroline, or Melinda, as the 

 case might be, singing as though every bone of his 

 tiny body were a golden flute. The humming-birds 

 hung on invisible wings, and twittered with delight 

 as they feasted on woodbine and honeysuckle. The 

 pigeon 011 the roof-tree cooed and wheeled about 

 his mate, and swelled his throat, and tremulously 

 bowed and walked with a smiting step, and arched 

 his purpling neck, and wheeled and bowed and 

 wheeled again. Pairs of butterflies rose in straight 

 upward flight, fluttered about each other in amorous 

 strife, and drifted away in the upper air. And out 

 of every garden came the voices of little children at 

 play, the blessedest sound on earth. 



GEOEGE W. CABLE. 



