garius, beaming.

The father passed on, sighing mournfully; he could not understand his
children.--Down in the garden sat Rebecca on a bench in the sun. She
looked out over the heather, which was in purple flower, while the
meadows were putting on their autumn pallor.

The lapwings were gathering in silence, and holding flying drills in
preparation for their journey; wad all the strand birds were assembling,
in order to take flight together. Even the lark had lost its courage
and was seeking convoy voiceless and unknown among the other gray autumn
birds. But the sea-gull stalked peaceably about, protruding its crop; it
was not under notice to quit.

The air was so still and languid and hazy. All sounds and colors were
toning down against the winter, and that vas very pleasant to her.

She was weary, and the long dead winter would suit her well. She knew
that her winter would be longer than all the others, and she began to
shrink from the spring.

Then everything would awaken that the winter had laid to sleep. The
birds would come back and sing the old songs with new voices; and upon
the King's Knoll her mother's violets would peer forth afresh in azure
clusters; it was there that he had clasped her round the waist and
kissed her--over and over again.

THE PEAT MOOR.

High over the heathery wastes flew a wise old raven.

He was bound many miles westward, right out to the sea-coast, to unearth
a sow's ear which he had buried in the good times.

It was now late autumn, and food was scarce.

When you see one raven, says Father Brehm, you need only look round to
discover a second.

But you might have looked long enough where this wise old raven came
flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about
anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings
through the dense rain-mist, steering due west.

But as he flew, evenly and meditatively, his sharp eyes searched the
landscape beneath, and the old bird was full of chagrin.

Year by year the little green and yellow patches down there increased
in number and size; rood after rood was cut out of the heathery waste,
little houses sprang up with red-tiled roofs and low chimneys breathing
oily peat-reek. Men and their meddling everywhere!

He remembered how, in the days of his youth--several winters ago, of
course--this was the very place for a wide-awake raven with a family:
long, interminable stretches of heather, swarms of le