Lovely pure-white blossoms, with their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass, so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them.

The girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to work to pick in hot haste.
"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there if one hunts about, and I brought my stick." Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty scrambled down to the water's edge.

For those who preferred quality to quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was undoubtedly the place to come.

In pockets of fine river-sand, their roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of the snowdrops.

Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles; but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?
"Look at these.