The Summer of Saint Martin. 125 



have a softer beauty of their own. The broad leaves 

 of the plane, here pale yellow, there brightened with a 

 touch of crimson, now deepening into brown, are 

 falling fast. 



In the voiceless woods, where the warm hues of 

 beech and maple shine like the rich windows of some 

 vast cathedral, the trees stand motionless in the scented 

 air. A faint breath of wind, that just stirs the topmost 

 twigs upon the elm, brings down a shower of leaves 

 that patter like drops of hail upon the branches. 

 Elsewhere, a solemn stillness, broken only by the faint 

 sound of falling leaves. First conies a little movement 

 overhead, as the leaf loosens at last, and for all time, 

 its hold upon the parent bough ; a moment of silence 

 again as the little waif floats gently down, and then a 

 rustle in the underwood as one more touch of colour 

 is added to the ever-changing carpet of brown and 

 scarlet, of russet and of gold. 



Nor is the glory only overhead. The tiny leaves of 

 the burnet are turning crimson. Trailing sprays of 

 bramble glow with vivid tints. Brilliant fungi, brown, 

 and red, and yellow, lend their colours in the place of 

 vanished flowers ; others, pale and delicate, are strewn 

 like seed pearls among green waves of trailing moss. 



The frosts that gild the maple and the lime are 

 bringing from the north a host of winter visitors. It is 

 the season when, fleeing from the terrors of the black 

 and bitter north, there streams over the sea, night after 

 night, the vast array of hurrying fugitives. At the close 



