last almost fell over backward with its prize. Courtship, nest-building, family cares--nothing disturbs a robin's appetite, and it was, indeed, a sorry fools'-day for myriads of angle-worms that ventured out. Managing a country place is like sailing a ship: one's labors are, or should be, much modified by the weather. This still day, when the leaves were heavy with moisture, afforded Webb the chance he had desired to rake the lawn and other grass-plots about the house, and store the material for future use. He was not one to attempt this task when the wind would half undo his labor. In the afternoon the showery phase passed, and the sun shone with a misty brightness. Although so early in a backward spring, the day was full of the suggestion of wild flowers, and Amy and the children started on their first search into Nature's calendar of the seasons. All knew where to look for the earliest blossoms, and in the twilight the explorers returned with handfuls of hepatica and arbutus buds, which, from experience, they knew would bloom in a vase of water. Who has ever forgotten his childish exultation over the first wild flowers of the year! Pale, delicate little blossoms though they be, and most of them odorless, their memory grows sweet with our age. Burt, who had been away to purchase a horse--he gave considerable of his time to the buying and selling of these animals--drove up as Amy approached the house, and pleaded for a spray of arbutus. "But the buds are not open yet," she said. "No matter; I should value the spray just as much, since you gathered it." "Why, Burt," she cried, laughing, "on that principle I might as well give you a chip." But she gave him the buds and escaped. "Amy," Webb asked at the supper-table, "didn't you hear the peepers this afternoon while out walking?" "Yes; and I asked Alf what they were. He said they were peepers, and that they always made a noise in the spring." "Why, Alf," Webb resumed, in mock gravity, "you should have told Amy that the sounds came from the _Hylodes pickeringii_." "If that is all that you can tell me," said Amy, laughing, "I prefer Alf's explanation. I have known people to cover up their ignorance by big words before. Indeed, I think it is a way you scientists have."