face. On every side were increasing movement and evidences of life. Sunny
hillsides were free from snow, and the oozing frost loosed the hold of
stones upon the soil or the clay of precipitous banks, leaving them to
the play of gravitation. Will the world become level if there are no more
upheavals? The ice of the upper Hudson was journeying toward the sea that
it would never reach. The sun smote it, the high winds ground the
honey-combed cakes together, and the ebb and flow of the tide permitted
no pause in the work of disintegration. By the middle of March the blue
water predominated, and adventurous steamers had already picked and
pounded their way to and from the city.

Only those deeply enamored of Nature feel much enthusiasm for the first
month of spring; but for them this season possesses a peculiar fascination.
The beauty that has been so cold and repellent in relenting--yielding,
seemingly against her will, to a wooing that cannot be repulsed by even her
harshest moods. To the vigilance of love, sudden, unexpected smiles are
granted; and though, as if these were regretted, the frown quickly returns,
it is often less forbidding. It is a period full of delicious,
soul-thrilling "first times," the coy, exquisite beginnings of that final
abandonment to her suitor in the sky. Although she veils her face for days
with clouds, and again and again greets him in the dawn, wrapped in her old
icy reserve, he smiles back his answer, and she cannot resist. Indeed,
there soon come warm, still, bright days whereon she feels herself going,
but does not even protest. Then, as if suddenly conscious of lost ground,
she makes a passionate effort to regain her wintry aspect. It is so
passionate as to betray her, so stormy as to insure a profounder relenting,
a warmer, more tearful, and penitent smile after her wild mood is over. She
finds that she cannot return to her former sustained coldness, and so at
last surrenders, and the frost passes wholly from her heart.