after breakfast she told Amy to put on her rubber boots and come with
her, warning curious Alf meanwhile to keep his distance. Leading the way
to a sunny angle in the garden fence, she showed Amy the first flower of
the year. Although it was a warm, sunny spot, the snow had drifted there
to such an extent that the icy base of the drift still partially covered
the ground, and through a weak place in the melting ice a snow-drop had
pushed its green, succulent leaves and hung out its modest little
blossom. The child, brought up from infancy to feel the closest sympathy
with nature, fairly trembled with delight over this _avant-coureur_ of
the innumerable flowers which it was her chief happiness to gather. As if
in sympathy with the exultation of the child, and in appreciation of all
that the pale little blossom foreshadowed, a song-sparrow near trilled
out its sweetest lay, a robin took up the song, and a pair of bluebirds
passed overhead with their undulating flight and soft warble. Truly
spring had come in that nook of the old garden, even though the mountains
were still covered with snow, the river was full of floating ice, and the
wind chill with the breath of winter. Could there have been a fairer or
more fitting committee of reception than little Johnnie, believing in all
things, hoping all things, and brown-haired, hazel-eyed Amy, with the
first awakenings of womanhood in her heart?




CHAPTER XXII

"FIRST TIMES"


At last Nature was truly awakening, and color was coming into her pallid