And the garden is full of sheltered nooks, despite its being so high up. As the ground slopes towards the south, every wall that props up the garden—and there are so many, like giant steps down the steep hillside—gives protection from the cold winds to the little growing things that nestle in every crevice and on the ground below. Everywhere the pennywort was sending out clear green disks from the mysterious depths of crannies in the wall. Crocuses were showing orange buds in the garden beds. One precocious pansy held up a white flower, streaked and splashed with purple. “Spring has really come,” we all chorused. And oh, how good it seemed to be done with the winter; such a winter too! Surely the longest and most awful winter humanity has ever known! With spring and summer immediately before us, as it seemed, we decided to leave the trenching just for that day, and explore the lanes and woods. The lichens and mosses were at the height of their beauty—a beauty that would fade once the sun got any power. The wall-stones were splashed with browns and greys, rust-colour and orange, black and olive, and one particular lichen that is our especial joy tints the stone a milky pea-green shade that is unlike any other colour I can recall. Last year’s bramble leaves were purple and scarlet and crimson and yellow. Where the small ivy creeping up the walls had been touched by the frost, it had turned a vivid yellow mottled with warm brown and crimson. And it is surprising, once you take note of it, how much crimson is used by Nature where you would expect to find only green; and not merely a dull red, it is a brilliant, vivid carmine that is dropped about in quiet, unsuspected places, lighting up dark patches, emphasizing sombre details that one might otherwise overlook. We were turning over a handful of brown leaves under an oak tree in the wood; there we found the streak of crimson showing inside an acorn that had just burst to let out a young shoot that was seeking about for roothold below and light up above. Not only one, but hundreds of similar brilliant touches were scattered about where the fertile acorns lay among the moss and last year’s fern. In one secluded spot, where the cold had not been severe enough to wither last year’s foliage on the undergrowth, long sprays of ground ivy, climbing over a fallen branch, had turned to deep wine colour, stems and all, and lay, as Eileen said, “beautiful enough for one of them lovely wreaths of leaves they put round best hats.” Certainly it looked more artificial than natural, if one didn’t happen to know that ground ivy often takes on this tint in its declining days. Thanks to Tennyson, we all know that rosy plumelets tuft the larch; but it doesn’t matter how many times you see them, they are always worth looking at—and marvelling at—again.