Suddenly New York seemed to bloom. Not only were the parks and squares gorgeous with flaunting tulips, but the shop windows were equally gay with flowers, living and artificial, and with hats and gowns that vied with them. These last were repeated in the streets, worn by springlike maidens and bright-faced women. For that matter the blossoming plants were offered for sale on the curbstones in places, or went nodding along, enjoying their drive in vendors’ carts, through the narrow streets of which Beth caught glimpses in her own drives with her uncle, northward, into Westchester County, whither the car took them often since it had grown so warm, and where she rode Trump on rarer occasions. “Isn’t it happy!” cried Beth. “All of it, the whole of New York! You wouldn’t think a big city could get so much spring into it. It’s so bright and flowery! The country isn’t so bright now; fields look scrubby in March, but here--well, it’s just like Easter, all risen up after winter!” “Your wonder-winter is over, Miss Beth,” said Anna Mary, who had knocked at Beth’s door with a message from Mrs. Cortlandt while Frieda was finishing Beth’s toilet for a drive. “A wonder-spring is even better!” cried Beth, nodding at Anna Mary in the glass. “The reddest geranium would look like black crêpe to me, if I weren’t going to stay right on. But the summer will be better than the winter, so I’m enjoying spring. Aunt Alida isn’t going herself, Anna Mary?” “No, Miss Beth,” said Anna Mary. “She’s sending me.” Beth ran down-stairs. The hall was filled with plants of small sizes which Mrs. Cortlandt was sending to the families whence Beth and Anna Mary had drawn the guests for the Christmas tree; that tree seemed to have been long ago. At one side stood a small forest of bloom. Great azaleas in all their shades of soft reds, pinks and whites; orchids, roses, lilies-of-the-valley, violets so large and sweet that they dominated the other fragrances, Easter lilies, spireas, ferns, all dressed in plaited tissue paper skirts, like unearthly ballet dancers, and tied with broad sashes of beautiful ribbons, each with a card pendant from its side. Cut flowers covered the hall table, chairs and the seat of the long carved Italian bench. They were partly revealing their loveliness through paraffine paper, like veiled Turkish brides, or they were thrusting long stems through the end of white boxes of incredible length, to hint that on the other end of those stems was a rose of perfection. “Dear me, Anna Mary, it seems as though I must be dead. You wouldn’t think there were such flowers, except in heaven, nor half so many! Are we to take all these to the poor?”