after that they will not appear the same. It is 

 cheering to come upon such a fair company of 

 spring beauty where but a few days since were 

 none ; to enter a stretch of woodland and find it 

 populous with these friends of a lifetime, now 

 returned to their old haunts. We do not com- 

 monly reflect that they have been under the snow 

 all the while. Scattered among them, the anemones 

 lie in drifts, like a late flurry of snow and quite 

 as evanescent, lingering in the shadows only. 

 These are the delicate children of April ; May is 

 their foster-mother. Contact with them is like the 

 glimpse of a spirituelle face. But the adder's-tongue 

 which nestles by the brook has more fire in its 

 veins than the rest. Its spotted leaves give it an 

 almost feline beauty as it droops with the southern 

 languor of the lily. 



Serenity dwells with the woodland flowers. 

 There is about them some subtle refinement and 

 exclusiveness. They appear fit symbols of lowliness 

 and modesty. A strip of woodland beside the turn- 

 pike is like an ancient chapel left amid the din 

 and hubbub of city streets. The sturdier plants, 

 both coarse and gay, halt at the edge of the wood. 

 Within, the light is subdued; nothing obtrudes 



i 61 



