AUTUMN. 



97 



toads than I once did, and you wouldn't see me hunting on the ground 

 as in the olden days. Besides, you're getting bold ; there is no need 

 of hunting, for in that last toot you gave yourself away. Even now 

 my eyes are fixed upon the hole in yonder hollow limb, and I see your 

 tiny form clinging to the rotten wood within the opening. What would 

 I not have given once to have thought of that 

 soggy hole ! V ,,. } .^ 



Near by a spreading yew monopolizes a rocky f "^;;vA ■-. \ o-;., 

 bit of ground, its foliage creeping above a silvery ' "\'A/-' ; A .,,,,- 



gray bed of branching moss, whose pillowy tufts • " . ii jg -~s ■■ 

 spread almost to my feet. This was my fairy , ":>..;. v .; jfe f "\ 

 forest of tiny trees. Here I found the fairies' - '■: "■■:- 



cups and torches, and even now I can see their '■ &&■*&■■ 

 scarlet tips scattered here and there among the ' : , ;Sp f^''^K 

 gray ; and fragile little parasols, too — it were 

 an insult, indeed, to designate such dainty 

 things as these by the name of 



toadstools. Beyond this bed of moss a 

 scrubby growth of whortleberry takes pos- 

 session of the ground. The bushes are now 

 bare of fruit, but ruddy with their autumn 

 blushes, tingeing the surface of the knoll with 



a delicate coral pink. This thicket extends far down upon the 

 even encroaching upon the wheel-ruts of the lane, and across again 



slope, 

 until 



