FEBRUARY 



WITH the advent of February one felt that 

 the period of spring's probation was 

 drawing rapidly to a close. The bare 

 black boughs of tree and shrub were suddenly be- 

 dewed, as it were, with whitening buds ; green ot 

 the greenest flecked the hawthorn here and there, in 

 spite of the fact that last year's berries still hung 

 above it unconsumed ; the bright young privet leaves 

 peeped out on the dark old ones ; the resinous points 

 of the chestnut showed like brushes freshly dipped 

 to paint a summer scene ; the almond stood between 

 shut and open, as if knowing that, once open, it 

 must lay its whole freight of blossoms bare at one 

 flush ; and although the red on the holly still made 

 a brave Christmas show, rose and lilac, elder and 

 japonica, were in leaf ; jessamine starred the cottage 

 wall ; whilst snowdrop and yellow crocus, the wall- 

 flower, and here and there a daffodil, repaid by early 

 blossoming the careful hand which had planted them 

 under shelter from the winds. 



And out in the fields, striped with the fine green 

 vanishing lines of the young wheat, a jubilant cry 

 of quickening life ! 



68 



