WITH the opening of spring my heart opens. My fancy expands with the flowers, and, as I walk down-town in the May morning towards the dingy counting-room and the old routine, you would hardly believe that I would not change my feelings for those of the French Barber- Poet Jasmin, who goes merrily singing to his shaving and hair-cutting. The first warm day puts the whole winter to flight. It stands in front of the summer like a young warrior before his host, and, single-handed, defies and destroys its remorseless enemy. I throw up the chamber window to breathe the earliest breath of summer. "The brave young David has hit old Go liath square in the forehead this morning," I say to Prue, as I lean out and bathe in the soft sunshine. My wife is tying on her cap at the glass, and, not quite disentangled from her dreams, thinks I am speaking of a street brawl, and replies that I had better take care of my own head. "Since you have charge of my heart, I suppose," I answer gayly, turning round to make her one of Titbottom's bows. "But seriously, Prue, how is it about my summer wardrobe ?" Prue smiles, and tells me we shall have two months of winter yet, and I had better stop and order some more coal as I go down town. "Winter-coal!" Then I step back, and, taking her by the arm, lead her to the window. I throw it open even wider than before. The sunlight streams on the great church-towers opposite, and the trees in the neighboring square glisten and wave their boughs gently, as if they would burst into leaf before dinner. Cages are hung at the open chamber windows in the street, and the birds, touched into song by the sun, make Memnon true. Prue's purple and white hyacinths are in full blossom, and perfume the warm air, so that the canaries and mocking-birds are no longer aliens in the city streets, but are once more swinging in their spicy native groves. A soft wind blows upon us as we stand listening and looking. Cuba and the tropics are in the air. The drowsy tune of a handorgan rises from the square, and Italy comes singing in upon the sound. My triumphant eyes meet Prue's. They are full of sweetness and spring. "What do you think of the summer wardrobe now?" I ask, and we go down to breakfast. But the air has magic in it, and I do not cease to dream. If I meet Charles, who is bound for Alabama, or John, who sails for Savannah with a trunk full of white jackets, I do not say to them, as their other friends say, "Happy travellers, who cut March and April out of the dismal year!" I do not envy them. They will be seasick on the way. The southern winds will blow all the water out of the rivers, and, desoiately stranded upon mud, they will relieve the tedium of the interval by tying with large ropes a young gentleman raving with delirium tremens. They will hurry along, appalled by forests blazing in the windy night; and, housed in a bad inn, they will find themselves anxiously asking, "Are the cars punctual in leaving?"-grimly sure that impatient |