28 THE CYCLE OF THE SEASONS 



and serene. But yet there is an indefinable touch of niel.m- 

 choly interest everywhere present, as if unseen the parallels of the 

 enemy were hour by hour being brought closer to the ramparts of 

 summer's citadel. Possibly on the afternoon of the fourth or tilth 

 day of this bright interval the mellow atmosphere, under which 

 all nature has reposed in dreamy languor, yields to a leaden ha/.e 

 which pales the yellow sunlight. This dim curtain is destined to 

 transform itself on the morrow into fierce gusts of wind and sho\\n> 



Of Mill 



The gorgeous pageant of the Indian summer is at an end for 

 another twelve months. The saturnalia are over. The Canadian 

 autumnal season in allegorical designs is not correctly personified 



AUTUMN : READY FOR A TRAMP. 



in accordance with the general idea by the figure of a melancholy 

 sad-eyed maid ; rather it whirls before us like some mad maenad 

 scattering with debonair graces ' the magnificent ashes of autumn,' 

 left by the passing of fierce flames of scarlet and gold over the 

 northern woodlands. 



Happy the sportsman who, for a few bright October d 

 left * the weariness, the fever, and the fret ' of the populous . itv 

 to wander through woodland paths ankle deep in the rustling lea 

 ki. king aside ' the flying gold of ruin'd woodlands.' He !M, 

 the pulsating reverberations of the ruffed grouse bursting into 

 the open from the fringes of some abandoned clearing, 

 ipeedUy drops into his game-bag a couple or two of the hit! 



