240 EYE SPY 



Having thus decided, I closed my note -book, 

 but the experience of the next few minutes quite 

 reversed my plans, and led to the completion of 

 an entirely different article, or the pictures for it 

 at least, on the same afternoon, without awaiting 

 the morrow. 



I had barely closed the note-book when, chanc- 

 ing to glance out of my studio window, I observed 

 a well-known neighbor, a thrifty, retired granger 

 and carpenter, approaching across lots. His 

 house stood out against the sky at the crest of 

 the slope, about a furlong distant, above my 

 studio, and he had perhaps reached half-way to 

 my window before I had observed him. Some- 

 thing in his walk, his somewhat accelerated pace 

 and evident preoccupied mood, as well as a pecul- 

 iar position of his extended right hand, foretold 

 that some unusual errand had turned his steps 

 hitherward. With considerable curiosity I en- 

 deavored to detect at a distance the specimen 

 which he was bringing, well knowing from expe- 

 rience that I should soon recognize an old friend, 

 which for sixty years had somehow managed to 

 escape the notice of its new discoverer. 



Half across the meadow I now observed that he 

 held a leaf in his outstretched hand, and now I 

 clearly noted that it was a compound leaf, and in 

 another second I knew it all. For was it not a 

 leaf of the Virginia -creeper or woodbine? and 



