FOOTSTEPS OF THE SEASONS. 203 



mingle gold and auburn together ; and wherever the deep-green 

 shadow of Summer hung above the earth, now sits the brightening 

 tint of Autumn, as though Nature, listening to the warning voice of 

 death, had endowed the leafy children with the wild beauties and sun- 

 bright tints of oriental climes, to show her supremacy even in the 

 last hour. 



But sadder still, the trees begin to lose their leaves, and the forest 

 becomes at last a home for skeletons and fleshless bones, the silent 

 sepulchre of departed beauty. The first tree that becomes naked is 

 the walnut ; the mulberry, the ash, and the horse-chestnut follow ; 

 the pollards, and the hedge-row trees that have been lopped in spring, 

 carry their leaves till very late ; the oaks and alders next grow bare, 

 and the beech almost last of all, the younger beeches keeping on their 

 clothes till their spring suits begin to fit them, and then casting them 

 off. Green and quiet are the orchards now, with their gnarled and 

 twisted branches hung with rosy fruits, and with their soft grassy 

 carpets down below for the fruits to fall upon. Glorious are the old 

 trees, as they stand hoary and blanched with age, their backs bent 

 and their shoulders rounded with the heavy loads that they have 

 borne from year to year, since the good old time when they were 

 young. How gently come the golden streaks of sunlight among the 

 richly laden branches, and how the trees nod to each other when the 

 evening shadows flit about the homestead, and talk of the oaken tables 

 they have covered with fruit, of the birthday and wedding feasts they 

 have supplied, and of the many generations that have vanished like 

 silent shadows into the regions of the dark since they were planted 

 there, striplings, young, and vigorous, but scanty in the produce of 

 their fruits. But when they speak of those who have gone to their 

 last home in the old flowery churchyard, where Spring sprinkles her 

 blossoms every year, they whisper in low husky tones, and nod, and 

 sigh, and sometimes sing together the song of the falling leaf. 



As time speeds, however, large flocks of young linnets, greenfinches, 

 buntings, and other small birds are seen wheeling about over the wide 

 corn fields, as if driven from their homes by parents who had lost their 

 affection, and cast upon the world to shift for themselves. Then the 

 birds that home with us all the winter long, the fieldfares and red- 

 wings, come in prodigious flocks, and hover over marshy lands, and 

 fields of stubble. Above, in the hedges, near coppices and preserves, 

 young partridges may be seen trotting along on voyages of discovery, 



