stand that line better if one has ever seen the face of a sick child, who has been imprisoned all the winter, light up at the sight of an early spring flower. Our snowdrops came out on the nineteenth. I found the first one at the foot of the yellow-jasmine, whose flowers, by the way, are almost quite fallen. I thought it was alone-only a forerunner-but I soon discovered that they were out all round, in the wild-garden, and along the beds. What a perfect piece of work it is; and what a delicate harmony is the result of its snowwhiteness streaked with pale green! No wonder it should stand for us as an emblem of unsullied purity:

Make Thou my spirit pure and clear

As are the frosty skies,

Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.

The sunshine which brought out the snowdrops removed the final remains of our snow-man, for the last vestige of him disappeared on the same day. One of my little people came to me with quite a piteous face to say that the 'man' was all gone. However, he had an existence of three weeks, and his end was classical. He was himself his own monument; and, in a certain sense, he may be said to have been disposed of by cremation.

C

Lord Bacon held that all life was larger and more vigorous' upon the full of the moon.' I have noticed this week that one or two of our nights, lighted by the full moon, have been in great contrast with our days. The latter were common-place, colourless and dreary -the sky blotted with featureless clouds; but at night, a wind springing up, as is often the case, existence became a grander thing. I saw the moon roll up out of the east-and what a roll there is in her motion when she is near the earth-of such a breadth as to make her appearance startling and phenomenal. And then began her slow ascent through a clear sky. Could I help reverting to those magical lines in the old sonnet

With how sad steps, O Moone, thou clim'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wanne a face!

but when, at last, she reached the zenith, the sentiment seemed to change; she was now regnant, and I said to myself—

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

and again

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

It was a glorious picture; and the note of it was unity and simplicity; no stars to lead away the mind, no clouds, and hardly any shadow; only the moon

and the sky which held her, and the receptive earth. How still and quiet the old house looked with only its one light glimmering—a home of sleep standing in the midst of its moonlit belt of evergreens!

After this came some real spring weather. The sun for the first time in the year could be felt as a source of perceptible warmth, that warmth which, like wine, makes glad the heart of man. A brisk wind made a pleasant noise, and tossed about the bare branches of the trees; the short, new blades of grass could be seen in the meadows, distinguishable by their freshness from those which have been comparatively green all through the winter; the strawberry leaves began to unfold their fans, and the gooseberry bushes were covered with leaf-buds, which looked like pin-points of light. Towards evening the sun had done his work of calling forth the new stream of insect life: and in the level beams one could see the strange dance of gnats going on-the curiously. monotonous pirouetting up and down a two-feet space of air. A short life, I suppose, and a merry

one.

VII. THE CROCUS.

February 27.

IN our Calendar of flowers this must be the week of the crocus, as the last was that of the snowdrop. The two flowers are always pretty near to each other in point of time. The colder and paler blossom comes first, but the warm crocus is never long after it. By the 'warm crocus I mean, of course, the deep yellow one, which is the most characteristic and the most precious, because it looks like sunshine on the ground, now, when sunshine is scarce. The yellow is indeed wonderfully brilliant-brilliant almost as a flame. Tennyson quite appropriately makes Enone say

Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire.

One must not despise, however, the other two colours, the lilac and the white, which are beautiful enough in themselves the white especially, when it is fully opened and shows its large saffron-coloured stigma. That would be no starved or unlovely garland which one might make of flowers culled entirely from the pages of our lesser and almost unknown poets. The other day I lighted upon the following dainty fancy by Sebastian Evans :

Come, gather the crocus-cups with me,
And dream of the summer coming :
Saffron, and purple, and snowy white,
All awake to the first bees humming.

The white is there for the maiden-heart,
And the purple is there for sorrow :
The saffron is there for the true true love,
And they'll all be dead to-morrow.

Like many other good things, the crocus is a gift from the east; and Milton appropriately puts the flower into his Paradise.

Under foot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay

Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone
Of costliest emblem.

Finding the crocus out in my own garden, I strolled towards an old house, not far distant, where I knew I should see them in greater profusion. Passing under a row of beech trees, I descend a steep lane paved in the middle with the old-fashioned cobble, and at the side with larger stones as a causeway. On the banks here, when I was a boy, I used to gather the speedwell and the violet; but they are gone now, and I fear are not destined to return. the bottom, in what is locally called 'The Hollows,' are three or four cottages which lean fraternally together. Two or three streamlets gather into a brook; and as each water-course has its own tiny valley, the

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