thinks that anything more potent and voluptuous would be less enchanting,—­until one turns to the May-flower.  Then comes a richer fascination for the senses.  To pick the May-flower is like following in the footsteps of some spendthrift army which has scattered the contents of its treasure-chest among beds of scented moss.  The fingers sink in the soft, moist verdure, and make at each instant some superb discovery unawares; again and again, straying carelessly, they clutch some new treasure; and, indeed, all is linked together in bright necklaces by secret threads beneath the surface, and where you grasp at one, you hold many.  The hands go wandering over the moss as over the keys of a piano, and bring forth fragrance for melody.  The lovely creatures twine and nestle and lay their glowing faces to the very earth beneath withered leaves, and what seemed mere barrenness becomes fresh and fragrant beauty.  So great is the charm of the pursuit, that the epigaea is really the one wild-flower for which our country-people have a hearty passion.  Every village child knows its best haunts, and watches for it eagerly in the spring; boys wreathe their hats with it, girls twine it in their hair, and the cottage-windows are filled with its beauty.

In collecting these early flowers, one finds or fancies singular natural affinities.  I flatter myself with being able always to find hepatica, if there is any within reach, for I was brought up with it ("Cockatoo he know me berry well"); but other persons, who were brought up with May-flower, and remember searching for it with their almost baby-fingers, can find that better.  The most remarkable instance of these natural affinities was in the case of L.T. and his double anemones.  L. had always a gift for wild-flowers, and used often to bring to Cambridge the largest white anemones that ever were seen, from a certain special hill in Watertown; they were not only magnificent in size and whiteness, but had that exquisite blue on the outside of the petals, as if the sky had bent down in ecstasy at last over its darlings, and left visible kisses there.  But even this success was not enough, and one day he came with something yet choicer.  It was a rue-leaved anemone (A. thalictraides); and, if you will believe it, each one of the three white flowers was double, not merely with that multiplicity of petals in the disk which is common with this species, but technically and horticulturally double, like the double-flowering almond or cherry,—­the most exquisitely delicate little petals, seeming like lace-work.  He had three specimens,—­gave one to the Autocrat of Botany, who said it was almost or quite unexampled, and another to me.  As the man in the fable says of the chameleon,—­“I have it yet, and can produce it.”