The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint. Purchase of this book includes * trial access to -books.com where you can read more than a million books for *. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III They can be cold, those nights in April, for spring comes timidly to this little island of ours. I have seen children, like her, peep round a door. There is laughter in their faces; it flows in a silver ripple, quivering shyly on their lips. For one instant they look in on you and then are gone. It is no good your calling. Nothing under Heaven will induce them to come back. Perhaps the next morning at the very same hour the door will open gently, you will see the sudden flash of eager eyes, but never again that day. It were as well you gave up hope of it. And so comes spring in such fashion to us here. That very morning I had been sitting again in the Park. The sun was of pure white silver in a sky of blue. There was that cool, faint sense of chill about it, too, as when you see the flame of candles freshly lit. The daffodils under the trees lifted high their yellow petals from the grass to try and touch the warmth of it. Yet it only lasted for an hour or two. I looked down at Dandy as a grey cloud sailed up above the trees and hid the sun, and I saw a little wrinkle quiver swiftly up his back. " Ah, my friend," said I, " I Ve no doubt you 'dlike Nature to spoil you. We all do; but, unfortunately, she won't." I am always making these little reflections aloud to Dandy. It is not that he understands, but they do such a heap of good to me. By night time that grey cloud had drawn a score of others after it. When I came out of the restaurant after supper the wind was scouring the streets with a shower of rain. As I walked home