meadows, and the sides of hedges, and named from two Greek words
signifying 'milk' and 'a flower.'

And now we reach the orchard: but how am I to get in? There is nothing
for it but a scramble up that bank round the root of that old oak, whose
gnarled boles will afford me footing, and it will be easy to descend on
the other side; and so, with a few slips, I contrived to land in safety
among the long, tangled grass, and broken branches of apple-trees,
richly clothed with lichens, mosses, and fungi, in a spot which looked
as if untrodden by human foot for years. But that could not really have
been so, for no doubt the old trees had borne their usual crop of ruddy
apples, which had been duly housed. The value of an apple-orchard in
Devonshire--that land of delicious cider--is not a trifle, and our
farmers do not leave their orchards untrodden and uncared-for. This was,
however, sufficiently wild. But now for my snow-drops: there they wave
in thousands--

'Like pendent flakes of vegetating snow--
The early heralds of the infant year--'

in every stage of beauty, from the hint that a tiny spot of green and
white, bursting through the dark earth, might give, to the
fully-developed blossoms, hanging lightly on its graceful stalks, robed
in its vestal garb of white, and shedding its own peculiar fragrance on
the pure air. I gathered large supplies--enough to make me the envy of
all the lovers of spring-flowers whom I met; enough to fill my
moss-basket, and vases, and glasses without end for myself; and enough
to send a feeling of spring brightness and joy into the hearts of two or
three invalids, to whose sick-rooms I sent some of these pretty
messengers.