were off the subject it was better to leave them so. She only kissed him for good-by, and went out with the two gentlemen.

As they took up their guns Mr. Carleton caught the timid shunning glance her eye gave at them.

"Do you dislike the company of these noisy friends of ours, Miss Fleda ?" said he.

Fleda hesitated, and finally said "she didn't much like to be very near them when they were fired."

in

"Put that fear away then," said he, "for they shall keep a respectful silence so long as they have the honour to be your company. If the woodcock come about us as tame as quails our guns shall not be provoked to say anything till your departure gives them leave."

Fleda smiled her thanks and set forward, privately much confirmed in her opinion that Mr. Carleton had handsome eyes.

At a little distance from the house Fleda left the meadow for an old apple-orchard at the left, lying on a steep side hill. Up this hill-side they toiled; and then found themselves on a ridge of table-land, stretching back for some distance along the edge of a little valley or bottom of perfectly flat smooth pasture-ground. The valley was very narrow, only divided into fields by fences running from side to side. The table-land might be a hundred feet or more above the level of the bottom, with a steep face towards it. A little way back from the edge the woods began; between them and the brow of the hill the ground was smooth and green, planted as if by art with flourishing young silver pines and once in a while a hemlock, some standing in all their luxuriance alone, and some in groups. With now and then a smooth grey rock, or large boulderstone which had somehow inexplicably stopped on the brow of the hill instead of rolling down into what at some former time no doubt was a bed of water,-all this open strip of the table-land might have stood with very little coaxing for a piece of a gentleman's pleasure-ground. On the opposite side of the little valley was a low rocky height, covered with wood, now in the splendour of varied red and green and purple and brown and gold; between, at their feet, lay the soft quiet green meadow; and off to the left,

beyond the far end of the valley, was the glory of the autumn woods again, softened in the distance. A true October sky seemed to pervade all, mildly blue, transparently pure, with that clearness of atmosphere that no other month gives us; a sky that would have conferred a patent of nobility on any landscape. The scene was certainly contracted and nowise remarkable in any of its features, but Nature had shaken out all her colours over the land, and drawn a veil from the sky, and breathed through the woods and over the hill-side the very breath of health, enjoyment, and vigour.

When they were about over-against the middle of the valley, Mr. Carleton suddenly made a pause and stood for some minutes silently looking. His two companions came to a halt on either side of him, one not a little pleased, the other a little impatient.

"Beautiful!" Mr. Carleton said at length.

"Yes," said Fleda gravely, "I think it's a pretty place. I like it up here."

"We sha'n't catch many woodcock among these pines," said young Rossitur.

"I wonder," said Mr. Carleton presently, "how any one should have called these 'melancholy days.'

"Who has?" said Rossitur.

"A countryman of yours," said his friend glancing at him. "If he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay-none of the withering-if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious life-the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning decay and death into one's ears; this speaks of Life. Instead of freezing all one's hopes and energies, it quickens the pulse with the desire to do. The saddest of the year'-Bryant was wrong."

"Bryant?-oh!"-said young Rossitur; "I didn't know who you were speaking of."

"I believe, now I think of it, he was writing of a somewhat later time of the year,-I don't know how all this will look in November."

"I think it is very pleasant in November," said little Fleda sedately.

"Don't you know Bryant's 'Death of the Flowers,' Rossitur?" said his friend smiling. "What have you been doing all your life?"

"Not studying the fine arts at West Point, Mr. Carle

ton."

"Then sit down here, and let me mend that place in your education. Sit down! and I'll give you something better than woodcock. You keep a game-bag for thoughts, you?"

don't

Mr. Rossitur wished Mr. Carleton didn't. But he sat down however, and listened with an unedified face; while his friend, more to please himself it must be confessed than for any other reason, and perhaps with half a notion to try Fleda, repeated the beautiful words. He presently saw they were not lost upon one of his hearers; she listened intently.

"It is very pretty," said Rossitur when he had done. "I believe I have seen it before somewhere.'

"There is no smoky light' to-day," said Fleda.

"No," said Mr. Carleton, smiling to himself. "Nothing but that could improve the beauty of all this, Miss Fleda."

"I like it better as it is," said Fleda.

"I am surprised at that," said young Rossitur. "I thought you lived on smoke."

There was nothing in the words, but the tone was not exactly polite. Fleda granted him neither smile nor look. "I am glad you like it up here," she went on, gravely doing the honours of the place. "I came this way because we shouldn't have so many fences to climb."

"You are the best little guide possible, and I have no doubt would always lead one the right way," said Mr. Carleton.

Again the same gentle, kind, appreciating look. Fleda unconsciously drew a step nearer. There was a certain undefined confidence established between them.

"There's a little brook down there in spring," said she, pointing to a small grass-grown water-course in the meadow, hardly discernible from the height," but there's no

water in it now. It runs quite full for a while after the snow breaks up; but it dries away by June or July."

"What are those trees so beautifully tinged with red and orange?-down there by the fence in the meadow." "I am not woodsman enough to inform you," replied Rossitur.

"Those are maples," said Fleda, "sugar maples. The one all orange is a hickory.'

"How do you know?" said Mr. Carleton, turning to her. "By your wit as a fairy?"

"I know by the colour," said Fleda modestly," and by the shape too."

"Fairy," said Mr. Rossitur, "if you have any of the stuff about you, I wish you would knock this gentleman over the head with your wand and put the spirit of moving into him. He is going to sit dreaming here all day."

"Not at all," said his friend springing up,-"I am ready for you-but I want other game than woodcock just now I confess."

They walked along in silence, and had near reached the extremity of the table-land, which towards the end of the valley descended into ground of a lower level covered with woods; when Mr. Carleton who was a little ahead was startled by Fleda's voice exclaiming in a tone of distress, "Oh not the robins !"-and turning about perceived Mr. Rossitur standing still with levelled gun and just in the act to shoot. Fleda had stopped her ears. In the same instant Mr. Carleton had thrown up the gun, demanding of Rossitur with a singular change of expression-" what he meant !"

"Mean?" said the young gentleman, meeting with an astonished face the indignant fire of his companion's eyes,why I mean not to meddle with other people's guns, Mr. Carleton. What do you mean?"

"Nothing but to protect myself."

"Protect yourself!" said Rossitur, heating as the other cooled," from what, in the name of wonder?"

"Only from having my word blown away by your fire," said Carleton, smiling. "Come Rossitur, recollect yourself -remember our compact."

"Compact! one isn't bound to keep compacts with un

earthly personages," said Rossitur, half sulkily and halfangrily; "and besides I made none."

on.

Mr. Carleton turned from him very coolly and walked

They left the table-land and the wood, entered the valley again, and passed through a large orchard, the last of the succession of fields which stretched along it. Beyond this orchard the ground rose suddenly, and on the steep hill-side there had been a large plantation of Indian corn. The corn was harvested, but the ground was still covered with numberless little stacks of the cornstalks. Half way up the hill stood three ancient chestnut trees; veritable patriarchs of the nut tribe they were, and respected and esteemed as patriarchs should be.

"There are no 'dropping nuts' to-day, either," said Fleda, to whom the sight of her forest friends in the distance probably suggested the thought, for she had not spoken for some time. "I suppose there hasn't been frost enough yet."

"Why you have a good memory, Fairy," said Mr. Carleton. "Do you give the nuts leave to fall of themselves?" "O sometimes grandpa and I go a nutting," said the little girl getting lightly over the fence," but we haven't been this 32 year.

"Then it is a pleasure to come yet?"

"No," said Fleda quietly, "the trees near the house have been stripped; and the only other nice place there is for us go to, Mr. Didenhover let the Shakers have the nuts. I sha'n't get any this year."

to

"Live in the woods and not get any nuts! that won't do, Fairy. Here are some fine chestnuts we are coming towhat should hinder our reaping a good harvest from these?"

"I don't think there will be any on them," said Fleda; "Mr. Didenhover has been here lately with the men getting in the corn,-I guess they have cleared the trees." "Who is Mr. Didenhover ?"

"He is grandpa's man."

Why didn't you bid Mr. Didenhover let the nuts alone ???

"He

"O he wouldn't mind if he was told," said Fleda. does everything just as he has a mind to, and nobody can