spend a whole Saturday afternoon in the woods with my brother and sister.
Oh, how delighted we all were, when we found the first wild flowers of
spring! Let me see. What flowers show their pretty faces the earliest? Do
you remember, young friend? Perhaps you have always lived in the city, and
have never made their acquaintance. But if you have ever seen them,
blushing in their native haunts, I am sure you must remember how they look,
and what their names are. I cannot see how any body can forget them, they
are so beautiful and lovely.

One of the earliest flowers of spring, and one which grew in the woods only
a few rods from my father's door, near the stream that turned my miniature
water-wheels, is the _Trailing Arbutus_. Often you may find this plant
unfolding its delicate blossoms before the snow has left the ground. That,
in our northern latitudes, is usually among the first flowers in blossom.
Soon after she appears, you may see one and perhaps two different species
of the _Anemone_. One, especially--the _Anemone Thalictroides_,
as it used to be called in botany, though it is now the _Thalictrum
Anemonoides_, I believe--is among the fairest of all these flowers of
spring. She has a blossom as white as snow. The _Anemone Nemrosa_ is
almost as fair, too, though not quite, I think. You can sometimes see them
both smiling side by side, early in the month of May, nodding gracefully at
each other, and smiling as if they were very happy. It does not require
much imagination to fancy they are conversing together; and, indeed, I
would quite as soon believe that flowers could talk, as I would believe
those stories about the fairies that children hear sometimes.

There is another beautiful flower which makes her appearance very
early--the _Spring Beauty_, or _Claytonia Virginica_. She is
usually found in the same locations with the Anemone. Then there is the
_Liver Leaf_. Did you ever find that, little girl? Very possibly you
have not taken a ramble early enough in the spring to see her. She makes
her visit frequently in the latter part of April, and she does not stay
long. But after her flower has faded and fallen, there may be seen a few
deeply notched and curious leaves, to mark the spot where she bloomed so
sweetly.

The _Blood Root_, too, will make her visit, and go away again, if you
delay your ramble in the woods till the first of May. The blossom of the
Blood Root is a very delicate white. Hundreds of exotic flower