I had toyed with my own conjectures and speculations all through the
gay season. Every where I went I met the same people. I saw the
origin, progress, and final consummation of many a love-match, from
the formal introduction of both parties, to the glittering tell-tale
diamond on the finger of a dainty hand. I had learned many lessons
both from passive observation and active experience, and now as the
season of feasting and flirting and merry-making was waning into the
quietude of advancing spring, I had only to sit me down and rehearse
the wonderful little past which had come and gone, bringing wonderful
changes to many another heart besides Amey Hampden's.
May came, with its dazzling sunshine and its whispers of summer
warmth, and the birds carolled as birds have done every spring-time
since the world began. June came, and the bare branches sent forth
their tender buds to greet it. The birds flitted from bough to bough
and carolled louder and lustier than ever. It was the early
summer-time; that short but blissful interval between the ravages of
spring and the tyranny of scorching mid-summer. It is our misfortune
in Canada to know nothing whatever of the beauty of that spring-time
which has been flattered and idolized by poets' pens in every age.
With us this intermediate season is nothing more nor less than an
eminently uninteresting transition, invariably announced by such
harbingers as bare and brown and dirty roads; slushy pathways, running
with melted snow and ice; a warm, wet and foggy atmosphere, with great
drops falling constantly from the twigs of the trees and the drenched,
black eaves of the houses.
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