CHAPTER XXIII.
HENRY'S INCONSISTENCY.
Snorting March came as if blown in off the icy lake, and oozy April fell from the clouds.

How weary we grow of winter in a cold land, and how loath is winter to permit the coming of spring! May stole in from the south.

There came a warm rain, and the next morning strips of green were stretched along the boulevards.
Nature had unrolled double widths of carpet during the night, and at sunset a yellow button lay where the ground had been harsh so long--a dandelion.

An old man, in whom this blithe air stirred a recollection of an amative past, sat on a bench in the park, watching the flirtations of thrill-blooded youth, and pale mothers, housed so long with fretful children, turned loose their cares upon the grass.

It was a lolling-time, a time to lose one's self in the blue above, or sweetly muse over the green below.
One night a hot wind came, and the nest morning was summer.