3V0 
RURAL HOURS. 
yet patches in the forest where the warm coloring of October has 
darkened into a reddish brown ; and here and there a tree still 
throws a fuller shadow than belongs to winter. The waters of 
the river were gleaming through the bare thickets on its banks, and 
the pretty pool, on the next farm, looked like a clear, dark agate, 
dropped amid the gray fields. A column of smoke, rising slowly 
from the opposite hill, told of a wood wliich had fallen, of trees 
which had seen their last summer. The dun stubble of the old 
grain-fields, and the darker soil of the newly-ploughed lands, varied 
the grave November tints, while here and there in their midst lay 
a lawn of young wheat, sending up its green blades, soft and 
fresh as though there were no winter in the year, growing more 
clear and life-like as all else becomes more dreary — a ray of hope 
on the pale brow of resignation. 
So calm and full of repose was the scene, that we turned from 
it unwillingl}', and with as much legret as though it were still 
gay with the beauty of summer. 
Just beyond the bi'ow of the hill the road enters a wood ; here 
the path was thickly strewn with fallen leaves, still crisp and 
fresh, rustling at eveiy step as we moved among them, while on 
either side the trees threw out their branches in bare lines of gra3^ 
Old chestnuts, with blunt and rough notches elms ; Avith graceful 
waving spray ; Aigorous maples, with the healthful, upright groAvth 
of their tribe ; the glossy beech, with friendly arms stretched out, 
as if to greet its neighbors, and among them all, conspicuous as 
ever, stood the delicate birch, with its alabaster-like bark, and 
branches of a porphyry color, so strangely different from the 
parent stem. Every year, as the foliage falls, and the trees re- 
appear in their wintry form, the eye wonders a while at the change. 
