io6 HILLSIDE, ROCK, AND DALE 



and returns for another ; still he cannot quite com- 

 prehend the big stranger, and thus stops to look 

 in my direction every few minutes. 



Before the dews of morning are dried from the 

 grasses, evening mists float slowly down, and again 

 begin to condense on them. During these silent 

 days of autumn the grass is never dry, and mist 

 follows mist in quick succession, floating away with 

 the sun, and falling again when evening comes on. 

 And so the pageant of autumn slowly passes ; but 

 each evening mist, and every falling leaf, tells us 

 that a great change is near ; we cannot now think 

 of the end, however, for the bracken is still green, 

 the tall elms are not yet tinted with yellow, and 

 overhead skims a swallow. While he flies the days 

 are fair; and as he circles over the low mists, it 

 hardly seems as if summer can really be gone. But 

 day by day the birches become a deeper brown ; 

 and the elms, which stand so high, change from 

 green to pale yellow. At length the day comes 

 when swallows, which skimmed so swiftly over the 

 silvery ripples on the lake, are seen no more, and 

 we know that the end of autumn's best show is 

 near. Just before that time, when this season seems 

 suddenly to change into winter, there come several 

 days of sunshine calm, warm, cloudless days, with 

 a pale blue sky, nearly white on the horizon, and with 

 skylarks singing sweetly over the green meadows. 



