CHAPTER XLIII.
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HE fair commencement of the spring spread into fuller glory; the air grew full of the scent of narcissus and woodruff; the gladwyn and the iris, purple and azure, blossomed beside every pool and runlet of water; in the woods the flowering ashes were white as new-fallen snow, the sombre ilex glades grew light with their young leafage, the bird-cherry and the fragrant cherry were in bloom, and the goats cropped once more the tender leaves of cistus and of myrtle.
In the great unmeasured meadows the grass grew already breast-high; the buf-
