20 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



oak or maple, and now and then we see 

 the whole gamut of colour on a sunlighted 

 hillside, where the green leaves of the 

 silver pines form a soft background for the 

 brighter foliage. But many trees are bare, 

 and show the full grace of their lines, and 

 hi numerous places we see as through a 

 thin veil the secrets which the summer had 

 concealed from our eyes. 



I have repeatedly found myself after 

 nightfall plodding along some unwonted 

 wood path iu the gathering darkness until 

 I have begun to be apprehensive lest I 

 might be compelled to pass the night in the 

 damp, cool autumn air without shelter. On 

 the last occasion I more than once nearly 

 gave up extricating myself before morning. 

 For these roads often start bravely with 

 well-beaten tracks, but gradually show less 

 and less evidence of use, and branch and 

 branch until you are quite sure you do not 

 know where you are. And the clouds cover 

 the moon, and the darkness grows apace, 

 and the shadows deepen about you ; and 

 you hear no sound save the katydids and 

 crickets. 



We have miles of woodland, broken here 

 and there by open fields, and none of it 

 primeval forest. Unhappily the primeval 



