sing to me silently, yet eloquently, of
the blue and gold of the vanished summer, and the crimson and purple of
its autumn. It is a branch, gathered from that prettiest feature of
mountain scenery,--a moss-grown fir-tree. You will see them at every
step, standing all-lovely in this graceful robe. It is, in color, a
vivid pea-green, with little hard flowers which look more like dots
than anything else, and contrast beautifully with the deeper verdure of
the fir. The branch which I brought home I have placed above my window.
It is three feet in length, and as large round as a person's arm; and
there it remains, a cornice wreathed with purple-starred tapestry,
whose wondrous beauty no upholsterer can ever match.

I have got the prettiest New Year's present. You will never guess what
it is, so I shall have to tell you. On the eve of the year, as the
"General" was lifting a glass of water, which had just been brought
from the river, to his lips, he was startled at the sight of a tiny
fish. He immediately put it into a glass jar and gave it to me. It is
that most lovely of all the creatures of Thetis, a spotted trout, a
little more than two inches in length. Its back, of mingled green and
gold, is splashed with dots of the richest sable. A mark of a dark-ruby
color, in shape like an anchor, crowns its elegant little head. Nothing
can be prettier than the delicate wings of pale purple with which its
snowy belly is faintly penciled. Its jet-black eyes, rimmed with silver
within a circlet of rare sea-blue, gleam like diamonds, and its whole
graceful shape is gilded with a shimmering sheen infinitely lovely.
When I watch it from across the room as it glides slowly round its
crystal palace, it reminds me of a beam of many-colored light, but when
it glides up and down in its gay playfulness, it gleams through the
liquid atmosphere like a box of shining silver. "A thing of beauty is a
joy forever," and truly I never weary watching the perfected loveliness
of my graceful little captive.

In the list of my deprivations above written, I forgot to mention a
fact which I know will gain me the sympathy of all carnivorously
disposed people. It is, that we have had no fresh meat for nearly a
month! Dark and ominous rumors are also floating through the moist air,
to the effect that the potatoes and onions are about to give out! But
don't be alarmed, dear Molly. There is no danger of a famine. For have
we not got wagon-loads of hard, dark ha