THE TIME OF YEAR. 213 
e) 
—a long night,a short day for them. So they continued 
till in January the day had grown thirty minutes longer, 
when they went to roost so much the later ; in February, 
four o’clock ; in March, by degrees their time for passing 
by the window ez route drew on to five o’clock. Let the 
cold be never so great or the sky so clouded, the mys- 
terious influence of the light, as the sun slowly rises 
higher on the meridian, sinks into the earth like a magic 
rain. It enters the hardest bark and the rolled-up bud, 
so firm that its point will prick the finger like a thorn; 
it stirs beneath the surface of the ground. A magnetism 
that is not heat, and for which there is no exact name, 
works out of sight in answer to the sun. Seen or un- 
seen, clouded or not, every day the sun lifts itself an 
inch higher, and let the north wind shrivel as it may, 
this invisible potency compels the bud to swell and the 
flower to be ready in its calyx. Progress goes on ir 
spite of every discouragement. The birch trees red- 
dened all along their slender boughs, and when the sun- 
light struck aslant, the shining bark shone like gossamer 
threads wet with dew. 
The wood-pigeon in the fir trees could not be silent 
any longer. Whoo—too—whoo—ooe! then up he flew 
with a clatter of his wings and down again into the 
trees. ‘Take two cows, Taffy, he could not be silent 
any longer—whoo—too—whoo—ooe! The blackthorn 
bloom began to faintly show the tiniest white studs, and 
the boys in great triumph brought in the first blue 
thrush’s eggs. Nature would go on though under the 
thumb of the north wind. Poor folk came out of the 
towns to gather ivy leaves for sale in the streets to make 
button-holes. Many people think the ivy leaf has a 
pleasant shape; it was used of old time among the 
Greeks and Romans to decorate the person at joyous 
