south. The dark-spotted leaves of the dog-tooth violet begin to
show. Even Fahrenheit's contrivance joins in the upward movement:
the mercury has suddenly gone up from thirty degrees to sixty-five
degrees. It is time for the ice-man. Ice has no sooner disappeared
than we desire it.

There is a smile, if one may say so, in the blue sky, and there is.
softness in the south wind. The song-sparrow is singing in the
apple-tree. Another bird-note is heard,--two long, musical whistles,
liquid but metallic. A brown bird this one, darker than the
song-sparrow, and without the latter's light stripes, and smaller,
yet bigger than the queer little chipping-bird. He wants a familiar
name, this sweet singer, who appears to be a sort of sparrow. He is
such a contrast to the blue-jays, who have arrived in a passion, as
usual, screaming and scolding, the elegant, spoiled beauties! They
wrangle from morning till night, these beautiful, high-tempered
aristocrats.

Encouraged by the birds, by the bursting of the lilac-buds, by the
peeping-up of the crocuses, by tradition, by the sweet flutterings of
a double hope, another sign appears. This is the Easter bonnets,
most delightful flowers of the year, emblems of innocence, hope,
devotion. Alas that they have to be worn under umbrellas, so much
thought, freshness, feeling, tenderness have gone into them! And a
northeast storm of rain, accompanied with hail, comes to crown all
these virtues with that of self-sacrifice. The frail hat is offered
up to the implacable season. In fact, Nature is not to be
forestalled nor hurried in this way. Things cannot be pushed.
Nature hesitates. The woman who does not hesitate in April is lost.
The appearance of the bonnets is premature. The blackbirds see it.