ot_ least, the importunate voices of
Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle
with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have
pitched upon so tender-hearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim a
struggle:

J'aime, I love.

Tu aimes, Thou lovest.

Il aime, He loves.

Nous aimons, We love.

Vous aimez, You love.

Ils aiment, They love.

This, with endless variations of ingenious and hideous
inaccuracies--this, interspersed with foolish laughter and bitter tears,
is what I have daily been audience to, for the last two months. The day
before yesterday a great stride was taken; the present tense was
pronounced vanquished, and Barbara and her pupil passed on in triumph to
the imperfect, "j'aimais, I loved, or was loving." To-day, in order to
be quite on the safe side, a return has been made to "j'aime," and it
has been discovered that it has utterly disappeared from our young
sister's memory. "J'aimais, I loved, or was loving," has entirely routed
and dispersed his elder brother, "j'aime, I love." The old strain is,
therefore, desperately resumed:

J'aime, I love.

Tu aimes, Thou lovest.

Il aime, He loves, etc.

It is making me drowsy. Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the
sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill. I get up, and,
putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving
Barbara--her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou
Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive
verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a
corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm
strength. I gaze lovingly at the rich brown earth, so lately freed from
the frost's grasp, through which the blunt green buds are gently forcing
themselves. I look down the flaming crocus throats--the imperial purple
goblets with powdery gold stamens--and at the modest little pink faces
of the hepaticas. All over our wood there is a faint yet certain purply
shade, forerunner of the summer green, and the loud and sweet-voiced
birds are abroad. O Spring! Spring! with all your searching east winds,
with your late, shriveling frosts, with your occasional untimely sleets
and snows, you are yet as much better than summer as hope is better than
fruition.

J'aime, I love.

Tu aimes, Thou lovest.