IV 
TURN around the garden on a bright 
spring morning is as interesting as 
a voyage of discovery. March is past, that 
month of hopes and fears, and ‘‘hope de- 
ferred,’’ and April has come with smiles and 
promises; yet who knows what she is holding 
in reserve in the way of sharp frosts and late 
snow flurries? Daffodils and hyacinths, cro- 
cuses and scillas, with pure prismatic colours 
and delicate texture, shake out their trumpets 
and bells and celebrate the passing of winter. 
They love the sharp air of the early year. 
After them come, with slow deliberate 
movement, the richer and more luxuriant 
summer flowers. Peonies steal into sight, 
“‘muffled and dumb, like barefoot dervishes,”’ 
their carmine clubs appearing with the first 
shoots of the phlox; bare wands of rose bushes 
are feathered with green, and the herbaceous 
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