A bunch of early Lilacs was ever a favorite gift to "teacher," to be placed in a broken-nosed pitcher on her desk. And Lilac petals made such lovely necklaces, thrust within each other or strung with needle and thread. And there was a love divination by Lilacs which we children solemnly observed. There will occasionally appear a tiny Lilac flower, usually a white Lilac, with five divisions of the petal instead of four--this is a Luck Lilac. This must be solemnly swallowed. If it goes down smoothly, the dabbler in magic cries out, "He loves me;" if she chokes at her floral food, she must say sadly, "He loves me not." I remember once calling out, with gratification and pride, "He loves me!" "Who is he?" said my older companions. "Oh, I didn't know he had to be somebody," I answered in surprise, to be met by derisive laughter at my satisfaction with a lover in general and not in particular. It was a matter of Lilac-luck-etiquette that the lover's name should be pronounced mentally before the petal was swallowed. [Illustration: Persian Lilacs and Peonies in Garden of the Kimball Homestead, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.] In the West Indies the Lilac is a flower of mysterious power; its perfume keeps away evil spirits, ghosts, banshees. If it grows not in the dooryard, its protecting branches are hung over the doorway. I think of this when I see it shading the door of happy homes in New England. In our old front yards we had only the common Lilacs, and occasionally a white one; and as a rarity the graceful, but sometimes rather spindling, Persian Lilacs, known since 1650 in gardens, and shown on page 151. How the old gardens would have stared at the new double Lilacs, which have luxuriant plumes of bloom twenty inches long. The "pensile Lilac" has been sung by many poets; but the spirit of the flower has been best portrayed in verse by Elizabeth Akers. I can quote but a single stanza from so many beautiful ones. "How fair it stood, with purple tassels hung, Their hue more tender than the tint of Tyre; How musical amid their fragrance rung The bee's bassoon, keynote of spring's glad choir! O languorous Lilac! still in time's despite I see thy plumy branches all alight With new-born butterflies which loved to stay And bask and banquet in the temperate ray Of springtime, ere the torrid heats should be: For these dear memories, though the world grow gray, I sing thy sweetness, lovely Lilac tree!" Another poet of the Lilac is Walt Whitman. He tells his delight in "the Lilac tall and its blossoms of mastering odor." He sings: "with the birds a warble of joy for Lilac-time." That noble, heroic dirge, the _Burial Hymn of Lincoln_, begins:-- "When Lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd." The poet stood under the blossoming Lilacs when he learned of the death of Lincoln, and the scent and sight of the flowers ever bore the sad association. In this poem is a vivid description of--