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There's bluebells blowing in the dingles, and cuckoo-buds no end. And while ye are all grinding at your old Aesop I shall be roaming over the hills wherever I please." As he spoke he thought of the dark, wainscoted walls of the school-room with their narrow little windows overhead, of the foul-smelling floors of the tannery in Southam's lane, and his heart gave a great, rebellious leap.

GABRIEL knew nothing of Brother Stephen's troubles, and so was smiling happily as he stepped into the room, holding his cap in one hand, while with his other arm he hugged to him his large bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds.

The singing and serenity, the green and golden oaks and ashes, the flowers marsh-orchis, ladies' smocks, and cuckoo-buds, starring the rushy grass all brought to Gyp that feeling of the uncapturable spirit which lies behind the forms of nature, the shadowy, hovering smile of life that is ever vanishing and ever springing again out of death.

IT was a bright morning of early April, many hundred years ago; and through all the fields and meadows of Normandy the violets and cuckoo-buds were just beginning to peep through the tender green of the young grass.

That Gabriel Viaud was a peasant lad, any one could have told from the blouse of blue homespun, and the wooden shoes which he wore; and that he felt the gladness of the April time could easily be known by the happy little song he began to sing to himself, and by the eager delight with which he now and then stooped to pluck a blue violet or to gather a handful of golden cuckoo-buds.

"When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight." In England the daffodil blooms in February and March; the swallow comes in April usually; hence the truth of Shakespeare's lines: "Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty."

There were more important matters near at hand; May Day was approaching, an event of interest and excitement to both young and old. "When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight." Shakespeare.

Birds, again, like animals, have suggested various names, and among some of the best-known ones may be mentioned the goose-foot, goose-grass, goose-tongue. Shakespeare speaks of cuckoo-buds, and there is cuckoo's-head, cuckoo-flower, and cuckoo-fruit, besides the stork's-bill and crane's-bill.

'When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree My stratagem succeeded completely.

"When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady's smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then on every tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo." And one of the finest of our orchids is "Our Lady's slipper." The ribbon grass is "Our Lady's garters," and the dodder supplies her "laces."