Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/141

 Her hands were full of trailing arbutus which filled the air with its delicious fragrance.

"Then I will forgive you," she said, pinning a cluster of deep pink blossoms on his coat.

"What are these beautiful flowers?" he said, smelling of them.

"For shame!" she exclaimed, "not to be acquainted with trailing arbutus. The woods are full of it. Whittier calls it the Mayflower, and says, 'It was the first flower to greet the Pilgrims after their fearful winter,'" and with a happy smile she repeated:

"'Yet God be praised,' the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, 'Behold our Mayflower here.'

"O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then, Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen."

"I think I have heard Mary speak of them," said Hernando, "but I never saw them before."