It was the early spring,
and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were
dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow
dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn
leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless
violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the
miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept
in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the
remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent
sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around
her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured
forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of
the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck
it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the
spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft
radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self,
evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered,
taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love.
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