On the wooded bank that rises from the opposite side of the pool which the railway intersects there is abundant evidence that the green is asserting itself over the grey, for-- The dark pine-wood's boughs are seen Fringed tenderly with living green. The oaks and the ash trees are almost as black and bare as they were in the depth of winter, and there are dark, unrelieved patches here and there, but the golden palm-like foliage depending in graceful festoons from the tall spines of the larches show with distinct vividness; whilst the luminous, almost golden, yellow of the poplars is contrasted by the sombre brown of the limes and birches, whose budding twigs have not yet Spread out their fan To catch the breezy air. Presently the road descends, and we continue along a wild old wandering gipsy-haunted lane that looks like an avenue in places where the trees almost meet overhead; the sun-light falls in leafy shadows and works a flickering pattern on every foot of the causeway, and the broad strips of grass on either side encroach upon it as if striving for the mastery. On the sloping meadow breadths the daisy--"day's eye," as the poets loved to call it--with its "golden bosom fringed with snow," displays a little galaxy of star blossoms, and helps to remind us of Chaucer's "Legend of Good Women;" of the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou, who chose it as her device, and whose nobles in the sunshine of her prosperity wore it embroidered upon their robes; and of another Margaret--she of Valois, the friend of Erasmus and of Calvin, the Marguerite of Marguerites, who had it worn in her honour. On the bank sides and beneath the hedgerows the Dewcup of the frail anemone peeps above the wreck of last year's vegetation. Here and there the pale primrose may also be seen lifting its delicate blossoms to the passing zephyrs, that prettiest of woodland flowers that folds its shamrock-shaped leaves when "the storm sings in the wind;" the wood sorrel--Alleluya, as the apothecaries of old times were wont to call it--studs the high banks, and if we thrust aside the tall grass and the crumpled leaves and withered bracken that yet remain we may see the young ferns unfolding their Corinthian scrolls. The sun seems to have the same influence on the birds that it has on leaf and blossom. Every bush and thicket is vocal. Perched on the topmost twig of a spreading lime a thrush makes the welkin ring again with his mellifluous lay, challenging like a troubadour of old the admiration of his lady love, who makes responsive call from her nest near by; and high overhead--a speck in the blue above--a lark rains down his "harmonious madness;" the plaintive wail--"pewit, pewit"--comes clear and strong from the white-breasted plover, anxious to distract our attention from its nest in the thick grass, and from the distant copse the soft, mysterious, dreamy note of the cuckoo proclaims that the long looked for harbinger of summer has at last arrived.