Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/307

Rh these. Years, long years, have past away since I have seen these flowers, other than in the sorted bouquet, and the cultivated garden, but those fair fresh banks rise distinct on my mind's eye. They colour the atmosphere with themselves, their breath rises on the yet perfumed air, and I think with painful pleasure over all that once surrounded them, I think of affections gone down to the grave, and of hopes and beliefs which I can trust no more.

It was in the first week of an usually forward May, that one afternoon, for I had again began my watchings by the Park gate, that my father produced four volumes, and for me. How delicious was the odour of the Russian leather in which they were bound, how charming the glance at the numerous pictures which glanced through the half opened leaves. The first reading of the Arabian Nights was like the first reading of Robinson Crusoe. For a time their world made mine—my little lonely island, dark with the mingled shadow of the yew and the willow, was now