Bulbs and Blossoms

leave them all out in the cold and dark to die, and I'll never live in England when I grow up, for winter is a dreadful thing!'

The children soon found out what frost and cold meant; but the novelty of the small icicles outside their windows, and the beauty of the hoar frost glittering on the trees and bushes in the sunshine, more than compensated for the uncomfortable experience of cold hands and feet.

[Illustration]

They soon paid a visit to old Bob again, and this time he took them into the old-fashioned churchyard, which lay just outside the lodge gates on the other side of the road.

'This is my other garden,' he said gravely, 'for I gets so much from the rector every year for keeping the ground tidy.'

Roland and Olive looked round them with much interest.

Old Bob took them to a quiet corner soon, and pointed out five grassy mounds all in a row.

'There!' he said, his old face quivering all over; 'underneath them mounds are my dear wife and four children, al