of that season would be
qualified, and its gentler warmth would be extended to autumn, which
would be prolonged into the winter. The rigors of winter would be much
abated, and the partition of spring among the other seasons would
perform the mystic office of the Gulf Stream in ameliorating our
climate, besides ridding us of a time of most tedious and annoying
suspense. And what should we lose by it?"

The poet seemed not to be answering the Easy Chair directly, but only to
be murmuring to himself, "Youth."

"Youth! Youth!" the Easy Chair repeated in exasperation. "And what is
youth?"

"The best thing in the world."

"For whom is it the best thing?"

This question seemed to give the poet pause. "Well," he said, finally,
with a not very forcible smile, "for itself."

"Ah, there you are!" he of the Easy Chair exclaimed; but he could not
help a forgiving laugh. "In a way you are right. The world belongs to
youth, and so it ought to be the best thing for itself in it. Youth is a
very curious thing, and in that it is like spring, especially like the
spring we have just been having, to our cost. It is the only period of
life, as spring is the only season of the year, that has too much time
on its hands. Yet it does not seem to waste time, as age does, as winter
does; it keeps doing something all the while. The things it does are
apparently very futile and superfluous, some of them, but in the end
something has been accomplished. After a March of whimsical suns and
snows, an April of quite fantastical frosts and thaws, and a May, at
least partially, of cold mists and parching winds, the flowers, which
the florists have been forcing for the purpose, are blooming in the
park; the grass is green wherever it has not had the roots trodden out
of it, and a filmy foliage, like the soft foulard tissues which the
young girls are wearing, drips from the trees. You can say it is all
very painty, the verdure; too painty; but you cannot reject the picture
because of this little mannerism of the painter. To be sure, you miss
the sheeted snows and the dreamy weft of leafless twigs against the
hard, blue sky. Still, now it has come, you cannot deny that the spring
is pretty, or that the fashionable colors which it has introduced are
charming. It is said that these are so charming that a woman of the
worst taste cannot choose amiss among them. In spite of her taste, her
hat comes out a harmonic miracle; her gown, against all her endeavor