THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



115 



To the eastward, beyond the wood and through 

 its sombre glades, the sky is of a pale and perfect 

 green, but low down against the crest of the hill 

 which shows dark and serrated upon it, it is 

 brightening with a white light. Presently there 

 is the dazzle of the sun above the horizon, and 

 with a sudden attack its rays shoot through the 

 woods, at first with a steely radiance, but quickly 

 brightening and strengthening until the brown of 

 the wood is turned into crimson, the yellow into 

 burning gold, and the green of the mosses and the 

 hardier ferns into a brilliant emerald. The wood 

 is now a mass of gorgeous colours. 



As wine makes glad the heart of man, and drives 

 away for the time the pressing weight of care and 

 sorrow, so the magic wine of the sunlight gives the 

 radiance of health and life and beauty to the damp 

 and decay and sadness of this autumn A\ood. 



And now a wren begins to sing shrilly in the 

 underwood ; a robin on yonder gate nicks his tail 

 and expands his red breast, and with a derisive 

 cock of his eye at the sober-coated little wren in 

 the bramble bush below him, bursts into a clearer 

 and fuller song, and then stops, quite expecting that 

 he has overpowered and silenced mistress wren. 

 But Kitty is well satisfied with herself. She cares 

 not for any robin, though he is God's cock and she 

 is God's hen. She is an advocate of woman's rights, 

 and so she goes on with her contented and thankful 

 twitter very sweet it is if one listens properly 



