Thin, ragged, white clouds sail over the rose-bushes, just low enough to touch the fresh red shoots, which are now as lovely to look at, all in new curling leaf, as ever they can be in full rose time. That of course is written when there are no roses here to contradict me. There is one red-brown tone that one never sees except on a new leafing rose-bush and in the eyes of some animals, and there is a purple which is mixed nowhere else at all. And it all shines--how it shines!--under the soft cloud fringes, and when by accident a full-hearted deep-pink rose comes and sits alone among these young twigs and sprays the sight gives that strange ache of pleasure that hints how difficult perpetual ecstasy would be to bear. The rose-bed sleeps in the rains, but it sleeps with one eye open; I seldom look in vain for at least one flower. Now it is full of buds; the rose of yesterday is only waiting for to-morrow. Maréchal Niels have waited in a different way; they have not put out new roses but they have clung obstinately to the old ones. “At once the silken tassel of my purse tear, and its treasure on the garden throw” is no part of the Maréchal Niels’ philosophy. It hangs a heavy head and clings to every petal, reluctantly giving up day by day a moiety of its sweetness and lasting so unwarrantably long that in sheer indignation I frequently cut off its head. The garden rejoices wildly now, all the rains-flowers are gayer than ever, and daily confess to the sun that they never really pretended to do without him. A new lease of vitality has sprung up everywhere; even the poor sticks that Atma has propped up the dahlias with, have forgotten that they have been cut off untimely and are trying to bud. There is sadness in this and I will not consider it.