The next morning a faint perfume stole into my room. I rose hastily, ran to the window, and lo! the secret was out: the apple trees were in bloom! Three days later, and the miracle so long in preparation was accomplished; the slowly rising tide of life had broken into a foam of blossoms and buried the world in a billowy sea. There will come days of greater splendour than this, days of deeper foliage, of waving grain and ripening fruit, but no later day will eclipse this vision of paradise which lies outspread from my window; life touches to-day the zenith of its earliest and freshest bloom; to-morrow the blossoms will begin to sift down from the snowy branches, and the great movement of summer will advance again; but for one brief day the year pauses and waits, reluctant to break the spell of this perfect hour, to mar by the stir of a single leaf the stainless loveliness of this revelation of nature's unwasted youth. I do not care to look through these great masses of bloom; it is enough simply to live in an hour which brings such an overflow of beauty from the ancient fountains; but Nature herself lures one to deeper thoughts, and, through the vision which spreads like a mirage over the landscape, hints at some hidden loveliness at the root of this riotous blossoming, some diviner vision for the eye of the spirit alone. "Look," she seems to say, as I stand and gaze with unappeased hunger of soul, "this is my holiday. In the coming weeks I have a whole race to feed, and over the length of the world men are imploring my help. They do their little share of work, and while they wait, waking and sleeping, anxiously watching winds and clouds, I vitalise their toil and turn all my forces to their bidding. The labour of the year is at hand and on its threshold I take this holiday. To-day I give you a glimpse of paradise; a garden in which all manner of loveliness blooms simply from the overflow of life, without thought, or care, or toil. This was my life before men came with their cries of hunger and nakedness; this shall be my life again when they have passed beyond. This which lies before you like a dream is a glimpse of life as it is in me, and shall be in you; immortal, inexhaustible fulness of power and beauty, overflowing in frolic loveliness. This shall be to you a day out of eternity, a moment out of the immortal youth to which all true life comes at last, and in which it abides."