APRIL. 
THE PRIMROSE—GIRLHOOD. 
‘Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire, 
Whose modest form, so delicately fine, 
Was nursed in whirling storms 
And cradled by the winds: 
‘ Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter’s sway, 
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight, 
Thee on this bank he threw 
To mark his victory.’ 
Kirke White. 
F all living objects children, out of doors, seem to me 
the most interesting to a lover of nature. In a room, 
I may, perhaps, be allowed to exercise my privilege 
as an old maid, by confessing that they are, in my 
eyes, less engaging,—if well behaved, the poor little 
things seem constrained and genes ; if ill conducted, 
the gene is transferred to the unfortunate grown-up 
people, whom their noise distracts, and their questions 
interrupt. Within doors, in short, I am one of the many 
persons who like children in their places: that is to say, in any place 
where I am not. But out of doors there is no such limitation. From 
the gipsy urchins under a hedge to the little lords and ladies in a 
ducal demesne, they are charming to look at, to watch, and to listen 
to. Bogs are less amusing, flowers are less beautiful, trees themselves 
are less picturesque. 
I cannot even mention them without recalling to my mind twenty 
groups or single figures, of which Gainsborough would have made at 
once a picture and a story. The little aristocratic-looking girl, for 
instance, of some five or six years old, whom I used to see two years ago 
every morning at breakfast-time, tripping along the most romantic street 
in England, the High Street in Oxford, attended, or escorted—it is 
doubtful which—by a superb Newfoundland dog, curly and black, carrying 
in his huge mouth her tiny work-bag, or her fairy parasol, and guarding 
with so true a fidelity his pretty young lady, whilst she, on her part, 
queened it over her lordly subject with such diverting gravity, seeming 
to guide him whilst he guided her—led, whilst she thought herself 
