APRIL 87 



One with youth and beauty, one with new 

 sweet love, and older sweeter constancy, it is 

 the rival of the rose, winning by one subtle 

 test. The blossoms that are folded away 

 where no eye but your own can see them 

 what are they ? Roses ? You know that they 

 are violets, and that, however brown and dead 

 they might seem to others, to you they will 

 always be fresh and fair. These are the flowers 

 we love to think of as lying on the breast of 

 Mary the Mother, and how many a beloved 

 face has been shut away from the sight of all 

 living with less anguish because it was pillowed 

 on these faithful hearts. 



Borders of them grew in the yards I speak 

 of mats of them, carpets of them, and never 

 one too many. Little fragrant white ones, for 

 April only, and purple ones that rarely fail to 

 have a blossom or two on hand except in the 

 hot midsummer days when they are busy with 

 small, fertile blooms, which no one knows 

 about but the bees, and with packing their 

 seeds into little purses which shut and open 

 with a spring. A royal flower, the violet, in 

 many ways besides its colour ! 



Beside these and the roses, which came later, 



