THE VINTAGE OF THE LEAVES . 187 
Following the edge of my moor, I came to a 
little glen which cut deeply into its side. A 
few acres of bog fed a little brook that passed 
through the glen on its way to the river. The 
ravine was heavily wooded, mainly with tall and 
unusually slender beeches. Descending into 
this grove was like entering the halo which the 
sunlight of Paris, shining through golden-tinted 
glass, casts around the tomb of Napoleon in the 
chapel of the Hotel des Invalides. The rush¬ 
ing of the wind in the dry leaves filled the glen 
with sweet, soothing sounds; the sun warmed it 
and suffused it with radiance; and a deep bed 
of beech leaves gathered in a hollow offered a 
couch too tempting to be passed by. Every 
sense was gratified in this abode of music and 
color, for a faint perfume came from the leaves, 
telling of ripening and the fulfillment of nature’s 
purposes. At ease in the drifted leaves, I 
watched the tree-tops bending before the gusts. 
One moment the golden roof of foliage con¬ 
cealed the sky; the next, as every lofty head 
inclined, wide areas of distant ether appeared, 
only to vanish again under the rhythmic move¬ 
ment of the trees. The gusts kept the air well 
filled with falling, fluttering fragments of the 
golden roof. Hundreds of leaves were often in 
the air at once, parting company from hundreds 
of thousands still upon the branches, but going 
