ngs invisible in golden weather, but becomes
portentous and vast as the nether seas when the clouds gather and the
celestial watercourses are unlocked. One day I thought I saw signs of
a falling out between the conspirators, and I set myself to watch for
some disclosure which might escape from one side or the other in the
frankness of anger. The earth was sullen and overcast, the sky dark
and forbidding, the clouds rolled together and grew black, and the
shadows deepened upon the grass. At last there was a vivid flash of
lightning, a crash of thunder, and the sudden roar of rain. "Now," I
said to myself, "I shall learn what all this secrecy has been about."
But I was doomed to disappointment; after a few minutes of angry
expostulation the sky suddenly uncovered itself, the clouds piled
themselves against the horizon and disclosed their silver linings, and
over the whole earth there spread a broad smile, as if the hypocritical
performance had been part of the original deception. I am confident
now that it was, for that brief drenching of trees and sward was almost
the last noticeable preparation before the curtain rose. The next day
there was a deep, unbroken quiet across our piece of world, as if a
fragment of eternity had been quietly slipped into the place of one of
our brief, noisy days. The trees stood motionless, as if awaiting some
signal, and I listened in vain for that inarticulate and half-heard
murmur of coming life which, day and night, had filled my thoughts
these past weeks, and set the march of the hours to a sublime rhythm.

The next morning a faint perfume stole into my room. I rose hastily,
ran to the window, and lo! the secret was out: the apple trees were in
bloom! Three days later, and the miracle so long in preparation was
accomplished; the slowly rising tide of life had broken into a foam of
blossoms and buried the world in a billowy sea. There will come days
of greater splendour than this, days of deeper foliage, of waving grain
and ripening fruit, but no later day will eclipse this vision of
paradise which lies outspread from my window; life touches to-day the
zenith of its earliest and freshest bloom; to-morrow the blossoms will
begin to sift down from the snowy branches, and the great movement of
summer will advance again; but for one brief day the year pauses and
waits, reluctant to break the spell of this perfect hour, to mar by the
stir of a single leaf the stainless loveliness of t