Within the verge of the wood there were columbines, looking more pale
than red, because they were so modest, and had thought proper to seclude
themselves too anxiously from the sun. There were wild geraniums, too,
and a thousand white blossoms of the strawberry. The trailing arbutus
was not yet quite out of bloom; but it hid its precious flowers under
the last year's withered forest-leaves, as carefully as a mother-bird
hides its little young ones. It knew, I suppose, how beautiful and
sweet-scented they were. So cunning was their concealment, that the
children sometimes smelt the delicate richness of their perfume, before
they knew whence it proceeded.

Amid so much new life, it was strange and truly pitiful to behold, here
and there, in the fields and pastures, the hoary periwigt of dandelions
that had already gone to seed. They had done with summer before the
summer came. Within those small globes of winged seeds it was autumn
now!

Well, but we must not waste our valuable pages with any more talk about
the spring-time and wild flowers. There is something, we hope, more
interesting to be talked about. If you look at the group of children,
you may see them all gathered around Eustace Bright, who, sitting on the
stump of a tree, seems to be just beginning a story. The fact is, the
younger part of the troop have found out that it takes rather too many
of their short strides to measure the long ascent of the hill. Cousin
Eustace, therefore, has decided to leave Sweet Fern, Cowslip, Squash-
blossom, and Dandelion, at this point, midway up, until the return of
the rest of the party from the summit. And because they complain a
little, and do not quite like to stay behind, he gives them some apples
out of his pocket, and proposes to tell them a very pretty story.
Hereupon they brighten up, and change their grieved looks into the