WINTER. 



139 



points of color. Here we see a fimbriated 

 blotch of dark olive moss, spreading its 

 intertwining rootlets in all direc- 

 tions, and further up a spongy 

 tuft of rich brown lichen 

 tipped with snow. Who 

 could pass by unnoticed such 

 a refined and exquisite bit of 

 painting as this ? And yet 



they abound . i; 

 on every side. " ' \ 



See the shingly shagbark, with 

 its mottlings of pale green lichen 

 and orange spots, its jagged out- ' 

 line so perfectly relieved against 

 the snow, and, beyond, that group of 

 rock-maples, with its bold contrasts of 

 deep green moss, and striped tints of most 

 varied shades, from lightest drab to deepest 

 brown. And there is the yellow birch 

 with its tight -wound bark, fringed with 

 ravellings of buff-colored satin. Here we 

 come upon a clump of chestnuts, their 

 cool trunks set off in bold relief against a 

 background of dark hemlocks, whose outer 

 branches, clothed in snow, like tufted mittens, 

 hang low upon the ground. 



Passing from the wood, we now pick our way 

 through a neglected by-path shut in on either side 

 with birches, whose brown and slender branches 

 spring from a trunk so white as to be almost lost 



At every step we 



in the background tint of snow. 



dislodge the glistening wreaths of snowy flakes from |! '|| \ 

 the bluish raspberry canes. The little withered nests / fjft I 1 



on the tips of the wild-carrot stems hurl their fleecy 

 burden to the ground ; and each in turn the phan- 

 tom shapes give place to homely yarrows, golden- 

 rods, or thistles. Further on we see a wild-rose 



THE WINTER S DARLING. 



IS* 



