From a Convent Tower (Paperback)

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: Ill THOSE WHO SEEK Down here in Sister Etheldred's garden there are daffodils and little pink and white tulips. Green heads are poking up out of the ground everywhere; green leaves are uncurling themselves on all trees and bushes, except on the oaks which show only little pinkish buds as yet. The oaks stand up very dignified and seem to say, " Why all this hurry ? " For Nature is obviously in a hurry. You feel the rush of it all about you in the warm May air. After last night's warm shower you are conscious of a laugh and a leap in the foliage this morning. The garden reminds you of the rush of a flower ballet on to the stage ? it is wonderfully dramatic, this coming of full Spring. The air of the valley throbs as the sun-rays pierce it. The floor of the valley has changed to the splendor of an Oriental rug ? curiously mixed patches of browns and greens set in crude juxtaposition without any blending of the edges. Sister Etheldred wanders about the paths, obviously enchanted. There are so many wonderful things here, some in fulfillment, others in promise. There will be dark blue iris presently, and tall crimson tulips, and those green heads there tell of fragrant lilies when the Summer heat shall come. Then there are long beds where the roses are just showing little green leaflets, and a hedge of lilacs whose fat purple racemes promise to fill the garden with their fragrance. Sister Etheldred's one regret is that she could not have the formal garden of her childhood reproduced here; but, alas! the box could not be managed. Still we come as near it as we can; all the old flowers are here, and yet not quite the same. I wonder do we really care quite as much for these swollen modern editions of our old favorites, the foxgloves and the canterbury bells? Did we really want the...