THREE

SAINTS IN THE GARDEN.

PART II.

HREE children were pretending-I am afraid "pretending" is the word,- to learn their catechism in a bit of shrubbery at the back of a manse garden. The trees were bare, but Spring had breathed on the earth, and her bosom glowed with a wealth of golden daffodils-the daffodils

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty."

It may be that, like the poet, the small mortals "could not but be gay in such a jocund company "; for, of a sudden, the eldest of the three threw down her book; let them play a game, a game "out of her own head," a daffodil game-let them ask Queen Titania and her court in "yellow petticoat and green gown," (and not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these!)

to tea.

To tea, and on a Sabbath afternoon! the very audaciousness of the proposal gave it zest. So, quick! the fire was lighted, and the gorse, so artfully insinuated among the brown twigs, flamed; and the kettle, a last year's horse-chestnut, with crooked pin for spout, was soon a-boil. Then, her majesty must have fresh butter, of course,-the youngest child was set to work, up and down, up and down, a beheaded "daff" with stalk for stick, (and imagination for cream), was no bad imitation of the old-fashioned churn they had seen Grizzie, the manse cook, use; but never butter of Grizzie's make tasted like their make-believe.

Then the throne had to be prepared; and how soft its cushions of green velvet-moss-and seats for the maids of honour had to be placed by its side, all a-row; then the guests, uninvited (but time was getting on) appeared, and—the fun began!

Her majesty, her sceptre a lily-leaf, was gracious enough to accept a cup of tea,-a snail-shell on an ivy-leaf, offered on bended knee. Was her majesty's tea "to her liking?" (that was what nurse always asked when any of their small friends came to tea). So much to her liking, that I do not care to say how often her cup was filled, her ladies waiting patiently for their turn the

while, when there was a rustle, a step!

Was it the minister ? Hearts leaped to mouth, small hands trembled; and oh, the relief when the dearest eldest sister in the world, in green gown like the daffs, just as if she had stepped from fairy-land, came through the undergrowth.

The children did not fear a scolding; this sister (God rest her gentle soul, the "daffs" grow above her now), could not scold--but they did fear her reproach: "oh, children, children, did you forget that it is Sunday?"

The sister stooped

But these were not the words that came, and picked up a maid of honour-a maid of honour whose yellow petticoat had refused to sit, and on whom grievous damage had been wrought.

"Oh, children, how could you treat the poor 'daffs' so?" And then, lifting her hand for silence, standing above them on the bank, she repeated lines that the hearers know now were Herrick's and that sounded to small ears very like a hymn.

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.

Stay, stay,

Until the hast'ning day

Has run

But to the even-song;

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along."

(Prayed with the daffodils! The eldest girl was puzzled. but the youngest nodded her head).

"We have short time to stay as you,

We have as short a spring,

As quick a growth to meet decay
As you, or anything.

We die

As your hours do; and dry away
Like to the summer's rain,

Or, as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again."

It is a "far cry " back to that spring day, but one of the culprits remembers well the sobs that came from another of the three. "Oh, the 'daffs,' the poor 'daffs,' we did not mean to hurt

the daffs';" nor do I think she often sees the flower, without seeing too, in her mind's eye, the golden-haired sister (who had alas! so "short a time to stay ") swaying backwards and forwards as she recited her ode, the crushed "maid of honour" in her hand. Love of the flower, to which love of the one Faith-unknown to her in those days--has given so many names, dates from that hour.

Lent-lilies, lenten lilies, fast-lilies, pasch-lilies; the compiler of "The Circle of the Calendar," from which we quoted last month has most of the pious old names at his finger-ends. Fifty-five of the species ("an elegant bulbous plant ") should bloom, he tells us, between Lady-day and the Feast of the Holy Cross.

Daffodils, one might almost say, belong to that lover of Holy Poverty, St. Francis. In France they are "les pauvres filles," "les pauvres filles de St. Claire," or "les lis de St. Claire;" and the common early double species is dedicated to one of her sainted daughters, the St. Collette, St. Nicholas's namesake, who changed the habit of the Penitents of the Third Order, for her austerer rule.

The petticoated variety is known in Italy and the Peninsula as St. Catherine's lily, (the "Fiore di Santa Caterina,") and she was abbess of the Poor Clares at Bologna, and authoress, (as our compiler does not fail to remind us) of various pious works, including the well known treatise, "On the Seven Spiritual Alms.

St. Catherine's feast falls on the 8th of March, her sister Saint's on the 6th; and which of us with daffodils in our gardens can hesitate to offer a nosegay in honour of St. Francis's daughters?

The "scented daffodil or jonquil" is dedicated to St. Felix. The "peerless daffodil" is known in some parts as the Easter or the Pasch Lily, or "the butter and egg flower."

Of "St. Bridget's daffodil" some of the readers of the IRISH MONTHLY may be able to tell us something. (The writer was lately sent three of these precious bulbs, not yet in flower).

One way or another the compiler of the "Circle" has so much to tell us about his daffodils in March and April that these months are almost devoid of his usual homilies, and when he does give us one, on March 12th, St. Gregory's Day, it is neither in honour of the lilies nor their patron Saint, but of-the frogs "which are now croaking in pools, ponds, ditches and other shallow waters!" And as this croaking of these animals has long been well-known as a

sign of rain, he thinks it well to give the following aspirations "by which all may profit."

"Hymns should rather be Prayers of Praise than dirges, much less should they be chaunted only against calamity. For some sinners do greatly err who only pray, and give praise when they expect the storms of adversity, like frogs that croak before the rain, and against the coming of storms; while true servants of Our Lord sing His praise day and night, in the sunshine of prosperity like the grasshoppers, who fill the verdure with their music under a serene and propitious sky."

The Pilewort is St. Catherine of Sweden's flower, the "Star of St. Catherine," and her Feast occurs on March 22nd.

The Marygold is specially Our Lady's plant, and is given as such on March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation. "It received the Latin name of 'Calendula,'" our author says "because it is in flower on the Kalends of nearly every month, and for a similar reason in christian times, it has been called Mary-gold, being more or less in blow at the times of all the Festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the word gold having reference to its golden rays, likened to the rays of light around the head of the Blessed Virgin."

At Candlemas, the "old last year's" plants will show a few flowers; flowers too appear about Ladytide; the full flowering takes place about the Feast of the Visitation, seedlings a flower on the Nativity of Our Lady, (September 8), as they continue to do on the Feasts of her Presentation (November 21st), and of her Immaculate Conception (December 8th), " thus blowing on all her Feasts, as say the old writers, and the facts are true."

Has any one tried to count the flowers that-even in Britainbelong to Our Lady, Rosa Mystica? We have her smock (Shakespeare's "Lady-smock of silver hue"); her slippers, an orchis, her gloves, a campanula, which we know also as Canterbury bells, St. Thomas's bells, and St. Paulinus's bells (that saint being the reputed inventor of bells); her mantle (alchemilla vulgaris); her bed-straw, bead-straw, the peasantry to this day, in Belgium, saying their aves on its whorls when taking their mid-day rest in the fields; the Marsh-Marigold, her Mary-buds; her tresses (spiranthes spiralis); her seal, "Our Lady's signet" (known also as Solomon's seal); her cushion, one of the saxifrages; her pincushion, a scabius; then there is the Rose-Mary and the CostMary, and her lily, "Our Lady's lily," that never fails to blow