Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: mm eulogies first put it into fashion / of the lectures on Science delivered by this latter/ and of the way in which the spring first shows itself in the lower copses while it is still winter on our heights. The sweep knew a dell where the primroses were always a month in advance of any other spot. He had a soul for primroses, unlike Wordsworth's horrible Peter?which reminds me of the delicious remark made to Loki's young mistress by an old pensioner in Chelsea Gardens. He led her to the plot he cultivated for himself, with all the childish eagerness of the aged, and pointed to a single yellow crocus, blown this way and that by the wind, for it was a shrewish day. Look at it, Missie he cried. It's as playful as a kitten. We do not know at what hour in the bleak late February morning the little box was left in the porch. It was found there by the earliest maid, and brought to the Master of the House with his letters in due course/ a box that ob- viously had lately contained carbolic soap. Inside in a nest of moss, carefully covered with red bramble leaves, was a bunch of prim- roses tied with red wool, and the following verses: Beneath the moss and the mast, Though the weather has been wet and cold, I manage to raise my head Down in the Sussex wold. A LOCAL POET Thus it began, speaking in the name of the Primrose, to enter, rapidly and boldly into the sweep's personality: To.day I passed by the way, So I stayed and picked you a few, To show I do not forget The chat I had with you. Here the muse got a little tired/ but it ended up with unimpaired cheerfulness: I hope you are hale and well And now I must say Addue, Vours respectfully, STAR/' Over the page there was a charming P.S.: Perhaps you have younger fingers The flower...