144 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



children can be, catch up their little toddlers of 

 brothers and sisters, either in their arms or on their 

 backs, and hasten home as fast as they can go. 

 They know quite as well as the creatures around 

 them that it will not be safe for them to be out 

 of doors when the sun goes down. 



A soft sky comppsed of two colours, golden below 

 and grey above that, throws a charm over miles 

 of uncultivated fiats in all their primitive wildness, 

 such as without this golden glamour no one would 

 care to look at for any length of time. Yet in spite 

 of the evil reputation the district has, even now 

 there is a weird beauty over it all at this particular 

 time ; for the thick white mists that rise, the deadly 

 exhalations from the decay and wash of who shall 

 say how many years, are lit up with prismatic hues 

 as the light airs from the water move them from the 

 flats. Grey, rose, and indescribable gradations of 

 yellow are seen, from old gold to light buff; but the 

 changes are almost as rapid as the changing of 

 lantern slides. All objects are, so far as colour 

 goes, changed by the way that the light falls on 

 them. That purple cloud rising and falling in the 

 distance is a vast host of starlings that will, after 



