38 PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



hidden among the grass, and fill our hands with blue- 

 bells and cowslips. 



But we have in Canada few such May days as 

 Shakespeare, Milton and Herrick describe; here too 

 often it may be -said that " Winter, lingering, chills the 

 lap of May." 



The inborn sense of the beautiful springs , to life in 

 the soul of the babe when it stretches forth an eager 

 hand to grasp the flowers in its nurse's bosom. It is the 

 birth of a new and pleasurable emotion. I love to see 

 an innocent child playing with the fresh fair flowers, 

 meet emblems at once of its own beauty and frailty ; 

 for does not the Word say, " He cometh forth like a 

 flower, and is cut down." 



It was on the banks of that most beautiful of Suffolk 

 rivers, the Waveney, that the first happy years of my 

 childhood were passed. My father's family came from 

 the north of England, where among the mountain dales 

 and fells still lingered many primitive customs and 

 ancient rural sports. Of these the keeping of May 

 Day — no doubt a relic of some ancient pagan rite, but, 

 the origin forgotten, now perfectly harmless — was one 

 of the most cherished. My father still clung to the old 

 observance of this rural holiday of his ancestors, and 

 May Day was looked forward to with eager anticipation 

 by my sisters and myself. 



The flowers — the sweet May blossoms of the haw- 

 thorn hedge and the eirly spring flowers — must be 



