goddess, seemed to awaken from long slumber and stretch out her arms
with a happy smile,--and when May morning dawned on the world, it
came as a vision of glory, robed in clear sunshine and girdled with
bluest skies. Birds broke into enraptured song,--young almond and
apple boughs quivered almost visibly every moment into pink and
white bloom,--cowslips and bluebells raised their heads from mossy
corners in the grass, and expressed their innocent thoughts in
sweetest odour--and in and through all things the glorious thrill,
the mysterious joy of renewed life, hope and love pulsated from the
Creator to His responsive creation.

It was May-time;--a real 'old-fashioned' English May, such as
Spenser and Herrick sang of:

"When all is yclad
With blossoms; the ground with grass, the woodes
With greene leaves; the bushes with blossoming buddes,"

and when whatever promise our existence yet holds for us, seems far
enough away to inspire ambition, yet close enough to encourage fair
dreams of fulfilment. To experience this glamour and witchery of the
flowering-time of the year, one must, perforce, be in the country.
For in the towns, the breath of Spring is foetid and feverish,--it
arouses sick longings and weary regrets, but scarcely any positive
ecstasy. The close, stuffy streets, the swarming people, the high
buildings and stacks of chimneys which only permit the narrowest
patches of sky to be visible, the incessant noise and movement, the
self-absorbed crowding and crushing,--all these things are so many
offences to Nature, and are as dead walls of obstacle set against
the revivifying and strengthening forces with which she endows her