FIRST SPRING FLO WE RS SCILL AS 



wand had loitered there, we find its gorgeous blooms 

 of gold-laced regal purple, or as if some specks of 

 heaven's deepest blue had fallen low the scillas. 



Dainty Scilla siberica has many 

 charms and many blues, real blues, 

 china blues that make us think of 

 cups and plates on dark oak shelves, 

 of low panelled rooms where every- 

 thing speaks of an age when people 

 had more time, or made time, or 

 perhaps knew how to use time, when 



we half-fancy clocks went slower 

 and hearts were truer and feelings deeper. Yet our 

 scilla was the same, we are sure they loved him, like 

 them he never failed, and now he brings a link 

 of chain to hold and bind our hearts to them 

 and him. For they had not seen the melting 

 snowdrift fringed by gentian-blue, had never 

 plucked the tiny soldanella ; brain-fag, then 

 unknow r n, needed no such sight now Feb- 

 ruary's first blue squills no longer satisfy we 

 have progressed ! 



It is however later in the boisterous April days SOLDANELLA 



35 3-2 



