basket. No, my May, no rabbits! no primroses! We may as well get
over the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring us home
again.

Here we are making the best of our way between the old elms that
arch so solemnly over head, dark and sheltered even now. They say
that a spirit haunts this deep pool--a white lady without a head. I
cannot say that I have seen her, often as I have paced this lane at
deep midnight, to hear the nightingales, and look at the
glow-worms;--but there, better and rarer than a thousand ghosts,
dearer even than nightingales or glow-worms, there is a primrose,
the first of the year; a tuft of primroses, springing in yonder
sheltered nook, from the mossy roots of an old willow, and living
again in the clear bright pool. Oh, how beautiful they are--three
fully blown, and two bursting buds! How glad I am I came this way!
They are not to be reached. Even Jack Rapley's love of the
difficult and the unattainable would fail him here: May herself
could not stand on that steep bank. So much the better. Who would
wish to disturb them? There they live in their innocent and
fragrant beauty, sheltered from the storms, and rejoicing in the
sunshine, and looking as if they could feel their happiness. Who
would disturb them? Oh, how glad I am I came this way home!


VIOLETING.

March 27th.--It is a dull gray morning, with a dewy feeling in the
air; fresh, but not windy; cool, but not cold;--the very day for a
person newly arrived from the heat, the glare, the noise, and the
fever of London, to plunge into the remotest labyrinths of the