MAT. 127 



cheerfulness and hilarity. After these flowers have 

 appeared, our eyes, as they wander over the village 

 landscape, will rest upon hundreds of young children, 

 on a sunny afternoon, who have left their active sports, 

 to gather these brightest gems of the season, with 

 which they have associated many interesting supersti- 

 tious conceits, and whose novelty gives them a tenfold 

 value in their sight. Soon after this, the fields appear 

 in the fulness of their vernal splendor ; wild geraniums 

 in the borders of the woods and copses, white and yel- 

 low violets, ginsengs, bell worts, cornels, silverweeds, and 

 cinque-foils bring up the rear in the procession of May ; 

 and during all this time, those little flowers, which have 

 been very aptly chosen as the symbols of innocence 

 (the Houstonia cerulea) commencing in the latter part of 

 April, with a few scanty blossoms, grow every day 

 more and more abundant, until their countless millions 

 resemble a thin but interminable wreath of snow-flakes, 

 distributed over the hills and plains. 



The air, at this time, is scented with every variety of 

 perfumes, and every new path in our rambling brings 

 us into a new atmosphere, as well as a new prospect. 

 It is during the prevalence of a still south wind, that 

 the herbs and flowers exhale their most agreeable odors. 

 Plants generate more fragrance in a w^arm air, on 

 account of the greater rapidity of their growth ; and if 

 the wind is still and moist, the odors as they escape, 

 do not rise so high, and are not so widely dissipated, 

 being retained nearer the surface of the earth, by mixing 

 with the invisible moisture of the atmosphere. The 

 best time for rambling, if we would breathe the sweet 

 odors of flowers, is when a perfect calm prevails among 

 the elements, when the weather is rather sultry, and 



