the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh
begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was
fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were
drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into
faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence.

It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so
airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine
and spring morning--so that one's spirit dissolved in it, became a part
of it. Such a morning! Such a morning!

From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land.

It was the time of all times for good odours--soon after sunrise--before
the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night.

In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon
the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could not
at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the
general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the
moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the
faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and
just as I was saying to myself, "I've got it, I've got it!"--for it is a
great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields--I saw, near
the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple
tree in full bloom.

"So there you are!" I said.

I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its