d neck, and tears her
pretty feet by vain scratchings: mine is a warm sunny hedgerow, in
the same remote field, famous for early flowers. Never was a spot more
variously flowery: primroses yellow, lilac white, violets of either hue,
cowslips, oxslips, arums, orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy, pansies,
strawberries, heart's-ease, formed a small part of the Flora of that
wild hedgerow. How profusely they covered the sunny open slope under the
weeping birch, 'the lady of the woods'--and how often have I started to
see the early innocent brown snake, who loved the spot as well as I did,
winding along the young blossoms, or rustling amongst the fallen leaves!
There are primrose leaves already, and short green buds, but no flowers;
not even in that furze cradle so full of roots, where they used to blow
as in a basket. No, my May, no rabbits! no primroses! We may as well
get over the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring us home
again.

Here we are making the best of our way between the old elms that arch so
solemnly over head, dark and sheltered even now. They say that a spirit
haunts this deep pool--a white lady without a head. I cannot say that I
have seen her, often as I have paced this lane at deep midnight, to hear
the nightingales, and look at the glow-worms;--but there, better
and rarer than a thousand ghosts, dearer even than nightingales or
glow-worms, there is a primrose, the first of the year; a tuft of
primroses, springing in yonder sheltered nook, from the mossy roots
of an old willow, and living again in the clear bright pool. Oh, how
beautiful they are--three fully blown, and two bursting buds! How glad I
am I came this way! They are not to be reached. Even Jack Rapley's love
of the difficult and the unattainable would fail him here: May herself
could not stand on that steep bank. So much the better. Who would wish
to disturb them? There they live in their innocent and fragrant beauty,
sheltered from the storms, and rejoicing in the sunshine, and looking as
if they could feel their happiness. Who would disturb them? Oh, how glad
I am I came this way home!

VIOLETING.

March 27th.--It is a dull gray morning, with a dewy feeling in the air;
fresh, but not windy; cool, but not cold;--the very day for a person
newly arrived from the heat, the glare, the noise, and the fever of
London, to plunge into the remotest labyrinths of the country, and
regain the repose of mind, the calmness of heart