Weeks and months glided on. Spring, with its soft, tender, green, and many blossoms, was spreading life and gladness over the earth, and Leila thought Woodlands a second Eden. The conservatory bloomed with plants of the richest fragrance, and the balcony was gay with flowers of the brightest hue; various beautiful creepers, with the sweet-scented honeysuckle, forming arches over head; and Leila herself looked as fresh and blooming as the flowers, and as joyful as the skylark, as it soared with its glad song into the blue vault of Heaven. She was never weary of admiring the beautiful scenery by which she was surrounded, for early habit had made the beauties of nature to her as a continual feast. Several of her birds were now in full song, and she spent many of her spare minutes in the conservatory. The precious seeds had come up all but one, and she had now three thriving plants of Clara’s flower. Charles had not returned at Easter to mark their progress--he had gone into a distant country to visit an uncle, a brother of Mr. Herbert’s, but by Midsummer he would surely visit home, and she hoped they would be in full flower by that time, which would be for him a still greater pleasure. Leila had, besides all this, other interests to occupy her. She frequently visited the school with her Aunt Stanley and her cousins, and assisted the younger girls in the preparation of their tasks, and she paid frequent visits to Peggy Dobie’s cottage, and to the village, where she made herself acquainted with all the wishes and wants of its various inmates. The Saturdays were generally spent by Selina and Matilda at Woodlands, when, during part of the morning, they assisted Leila in giving instruction to many of the village children in church music, for though Selina’s voice was not yet strong, her knowledge in music made her a most useful assistant. They also now took daily walks with Mrs. Roberts in the fields, and generally returned loaded with wild flowers. Leila had become most successful in drying flowers so as to preserve their bright colours. The field flowers, assisted by her papa, she arranged in books in botanical order; but with the flowers from the conservatory and the garden she often ornamented screens, producing a wonderfully fine effect, superior to any painting, fixing them on with gum, and grouping them together in a most beautiful manner. Matilda often tried to imitate Leila in this, but she did not succeed, her flowers always lost their bright tints, they grew white, or they grew black, but they never grew beautiful; the stalks never would bend gracefully, they would always stick straight up; the gum would always go on in patches, never smoothly, and she complained that though she put on a great deal of gum, some of the leaves would not stick at all, so she generally ended by getting into a rage, and dashing her hair pencil all over the paper.