SUDDEN SUMMER 
43 
tender care. We expect the Trillium to remain 
modestly folded awaiting her turn, and the Dog- 
tooth Violet to be content with the faint suggestions 
of colour on its delicately mottled leaves. The 
Spring Beauty, too, though among the earliest, is 
generally content to await its due order, and the 
Trailing Arbutus, reclining cosily among the leaves 
and litter of the past year, may open its hidden buds 
at any time, according to the whims and fancies of 
the season. But now the favourites have all come 
forth at once. Long ago, as the flower season runs, 
the Skunk Cabbage, glorying in its lusty strength, 
pushed its way up through the lingering ice in the 
thawing bogs, regardless of the spring's delay. But 
this vigorous leader was not followed by the usual 
timid procession. Delay and disappointment marked 
the unfolding of the year until restraint became 
intolerable and the vigour of quickening life threw 
it off. 
Where the sloping hillside seems to quiver in the 
reviving warmth of awakened spring the Hepaticas 
are relieving the dark dull ground with touches of 
delicate colour, from white and the palest of pink 
through many varying shades to pale blue. Trilliums 
are wide awake, too, not at all disconcerted by the 
general departure from established orders of prece- 
dence. The dainty sprays of the Spring Beauty 
appear like a belated sprinkling of snow on the leaf- 
