«There's never been such a lovely spring, Nell thought. Frogs—or were they toads?—trilled from the pond, and there were pussy willows and catkins —what was the difference? —and then the hawthorn bushes and the wild plums, and the neglected apple trees came into bloom, and an uneven row of daffodils planted by some long-vanished farmer's wife thrust up through the weeds and dead grasses beside the drive. Birds sang. Mud dried.»