HOURS OF SPRING. 15 
tradition of a former world destroyed by a deluge of 
water, from the East to the West, from Greece to Mexico, 
where the tail‘of a comet was said to have caused the 
flood ; but in the strange characters of the Zend is the 
legend of an ark (as it were) prepared against the snow. 
It may be that it is the dim memory of a glacial epoch. 
In this deep coombe, amid the dark oaks and snow, was 
the fable of Zoroaster. For the coming of Ormuzd, the 
Light and Life Bringer, the leaf slept folded, the butter- 
fly was hidden, the germ concealed, while the sun swept 
upwards towards Aries. 
There is nothing so wearying as a long frost—the 
endless monotony, which makes one think that the very 
fault we usually find with our climate—its changeableness 
—is in reality its best quality. Rain, mist, gales—any- 
thing; give us anything but weary, weary frost. But 
fae once fixed its mind, the weather will not listen 
to the usual signs of alteration. 
The larks sang at last high up against the grey cloud 
over the frost-bound earth. They could not wait longer; 
love was strong in their little hearts—stronger than the 
winter. After a while the hedge-sparrows, too, began to 
sing on the top of the gorse-hedge about the garden. 
By-and-by a chaffinch boldly raised his voice, ending 
with the old story, ‘ Sweet, will you, will you kiss—-me 
—dear?’ Then there came a hoar-frost, and the earth, 
which had been black, became white, as its evaporate | 
vapours began to gather and drops of rain to fall. Even 
then the obstinate weather refused to quite yield, wrap- 
ping its cloak, as it were, around it in bitter enmity. 
But in a day or two white clouds lit up with sunshine 
appeared drifting over from the southward, and that 
was the end. The old pensioner came to the door for 
his bread and cheese: ‘The wind’s in the south,’ he 
