A SPRING RELISH 



brown leaves or the green moss, its cluster 

 of minute anthers showing like a group of 

 pale stars on its little firmament, is enough 

 to arrest and hold the dullest eye. Then, 

 as I have elsewhere stated, there are individ- 

 ual hepaticas, or individual families among 

 them, that are sweet-scented. The gift 

 seems as capricious as the gift of genius in 

 families. You cannot tell which the fra- 

 grant ones are till you try them. Some- 

 times it is the large white ones, sometimes 

 the large purple ones, sometimes the small 

 pink ones. The odor is faint, and recalls 

 that of the sweet violets. A correspondent, 

 who seems to have carefully observed these 

 fragrant hepaticas, writes me that this gift 

 of odor is constant in the same plant ; that 

 the plant which bears sweet-scented flowers 

 this year will bear them next. 



There is a brief period in our spring when 

 I like more than at any other time to drive 

 along the country roads, or even to be shot 

 along by steam and have the landscape pre- 

 sented to me like a map. It is at that 

 period, usually late in April, when we be- 

 hold the first quickening of the earth. The 

 waters have subsided, the roads have become 

 dry, the sunshine has grown strong and its 



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