and slender blue-bells, that sway all their dainty blossoms with every soft wind that steals about them. She has set all the young leaves waving, the birds singing, and her south wind blowing, and over the pulsing, throbbing, blossoming earth her light feet have skimmed, leaving beauty, life, and gladness everywhere. The poor, the sick, the lonely, the rich, the happy, the sad, love her equally, and welcome her with eager, smiling faces, and out-stretched, loving arms.
She is a rare friend to the poor; to them she means respite from that black, bitter aching of the bones, known as cold. She means soft green food to put between their lips, weary and starved with the broken dry morsels of bread; her fair bountiful blossom brings warmth to their chill bodies. Oh! spring is comforting, spring is faithful, she never yet failed her poor, but comes back to them year by year, ever young and fair and sweet, for she is one over whom time has no power. They look up at her azure ceiling; they look down at her emerald carpet; they take her delicate flowers reverently, gently in their hard, rough hands, and, remembering for one little moment,
The days when were we young,"
feel a softening, ennobling gleam of beauty strike across their rugged hearts, and go back to their toil and labour better, stronger men. The children rolling in the fields, golden with king-cups, forget the winter with all its hardships: in their beautiful to-day yesterday has no place. The poor drudge at her house door looks out at the fields and sky, and gives a tender thought to the time when she and her good man were young, and took a long day's holiday together, and a quick gleam shines athwart her dull, careworn face.
Ay! spring brings a holy, softening influence with her, and jogs the memory of men and women alike to better things and better
