"Peeweet! peeweet!" cried the , as he flew over the in the wood. "My Lady Spring is coming! I can tell it from the feeling in my legs and wings."  
When the new grass that lay below in the earth heard that, it pushed up at once and peeped out merrily from among the old yellow grass of last year. For the grass is always in a great hurry.
 
The in among the trees also heard the plover's cry; but they, on the contrary, would not come up yet on any account.
 
"You must not believe the plover," they whispered to one another. "He is a gay young spark who is not to be depended upon. He always comes too early, and begins crying out at once. No, we will wait quietly till the starlings and swallows come. They are sensible, steady-going people who know what's what, and don't go sailing with half a wind."
 
And then the starlings came. They perched on the in front of their summer , and looked about them.
 
"Too early as usual," said Daddy Starling. "Not a green leaf and not a fly to be seen, except an old tough one from last year, which isn't worth opening one's bill for."
 
Mother Starling said nothing, but she did not seem any more with the .
 
"If we had only stayed in our winter home down there beyond the mountains," said Daddy Starling. He was angry at his wife's not answering him, because he was so cold that he thought it might do him good to have a little fun. "But it is your fault, as it was last year. You are always in such a dreadful hurry to come out to the country."
 
"If I am in a hurry, I know the reason for it," said Mother Starling. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you didn't know it also, since they are your eggs just as much as mine."
 
 
"What do you mean?" said Daddy Starling, much insulted. "When have I neglected my family? Perhaps you even want me to sit in the cold and sing to you?"
 
"Yes, I do," said Mother Starling in the tone he couldn't resist.
 
He began to pipe at once as well as he knew how. But Mother Starling had no sooner heard the first notes than she gave him a flap with her wings and snapped at him with her .
 
"Oh, please stop it!" she cried bitterly. "It sounds so sad that it makes one quite heartsick. Instead of piping like that, get the anemones to come up. I think it must be time for them. And besides, one always feels warmer when there are others freezing besides oneself."
 
 
 
Now as soon as the anemones had heard the first piping of the starling, they cautiously stuck out their heads from the earth. But they were so tightly wrapped up in green kerchiefs that one could not get a glimpse of them. They looked like green shoots which might turn into anything.
 
"It is too early," they whispered. "It is a shame of the starling to us out. One can't rely on anything in the world nowadays."
 
Then the swallow came.
 
"Chee! chee!" he twittered, and shot through the air on his long, wings. "Out with you, you stupid flowers! Don't you see that my Lady Spring has come?"
 
But the anemones had grown cautious. They only drew their green kerchiefs a little apart and peeped out.
 
"One swallow does not make a summer," they said. "Where is your wife? You have only come here to see if it is possible to stay here, and you want to take us in. But we are not so stupid. We know very well that if we once catch a bad cold we are done for, for this year at any rate."
 
"You are cowards," said the swallow, perching himself on the forest-ranger's weathercock, and peering out over the landscape.
 
 
But the anemones waited still and shivered. A few of them who could not control their threw off their kerchiefs in the sun. The cold at night nipped and killed them; and the story of their pitiful death was passed on from flower to flower, and caused a great .
 
And then—one mild, still night—my Lady Spring came.
 
No one knows how she looks, because no one has ever seen her. But all long for her, and thank her and bless her. She goes through the wood and touches the flowers and trees, and at once they burst out. She goes through the cattle-stalls and the beasts, and lets them out on to the field. She goes straight into the hearts of men and fills them with gladness. She makes it hard for the best boy to sit still on his form at school, and she is the cause of a terrible number of mistakes in the copy-books.
 
But she does not do all this at once. Night after night she her task, and she comes first to him who longs for her most.
 
So it happened that on the very night of her coming she went straight to the anemones, who stood in their green kerchiefs and didn't know how to hold out any longer.
 
And one, two, three! there they stood in their newly-ironed white collars, and looked so fresh and so pretty that the starlings sang their prettiest songs out of sheer joy in them.
 
  
"Ah, how sweet it is here!" said the anemones. "How warm the sun is, and how the birds sing! It is a thousand times better than last year."
 
But they said the same thing every year, so one needn't take any account of it.
 
There were many others who were quite beside themselves when they saw the anemones had come out. One was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays at once; and another was the tree, who felt exceedingly put out.
 
 
"Aren't you coming soon to me, my Lady Spring?" he said. "I am a much more important person than those silly anemones, and I can't really hold in my buds much longer."
 
"I am coming, I am coming," answered my Lady Spring. "But you must give me a little time."
 
She went on her way through the wood, and at every step many and many an burst into flower. They stood in crowds round the roots of the birch tree, and bashfully bowed their round heads to the earth.
 
"Look up," said my Lady Spring, "and rejoice in God's bright sunshine. Your life is short, so you must enjoy it while you have it."
 
The............