however, methinks, make the short, fresh
grass look greener around them. Dry leaves are now plentiful everywhere,
save where there are none but pine-trees. They rustle beneath the tread,
and there is nothing more autumnal than that sound. Nevertheless, in a
walk this afternoon I have seen two oaks which retained almost the
greenness of summer. They grew close to the huge Pulpit Rock, so that
portions of their trunks appeared to grasp the rough surface; and they
were rooted beneath it, and, ascending high into the air, overshadowed
the gray crag with verdure. Other oaks, here and there, have a few green
leaves or boughs among their rustling and rugged shade.

Yet, dreary as the woods are in a bleak, sullen day, there is a very
peculiar sense of warmth and a sort of richness of effect in the slope
of a bank and in sheltered spots, where bright sunshine falls, and the
brown oaken foliage is gladdened by it. There is then a feeling of
comfort, and consequently of heart-warmth, which cannot be experienced
in summer.

I walked this afternoon along a pleasant wood-path, gently winding, so
that but little of it could be seen at a time, and going up and down
small mounds, now plunging into a denser shadow and now emerging from
it. Part of the way it was strewn with the dusky yellow leaves of
white-pines,--the cast-off garments of last year; part of the way with
green grass, close-cropped and very fresh for the season. Sometimes the
trees met across it; sometimes it was bordered on one side by an old
rail-fence of moss-grown cedar, with bushes sprouting beneath it, and
thrusting their branches through it; sometimes by a stone wall of
unknown antiquity, older than the wood it closed in. A stone wall, when
shrubbery has grown around it, and thrust its roots beneath it, becomes
a very pleasant and meditative object. It does not belong too evidently
to man, having been built so long ago. It seems a part of nature.

Yesterday I found two mushrooms in the woods, probably of the preceding
night's growth. Also I saw a mosquito, frost-pinched, and so wretched
that I felt avenged for all the injuries which his tribe inflicted upon
me last summer, and so did not molest this lone survivor.

Walnuts in their green rinds are falling from the trees, and so are
chestnut-burrs.

I found a maple-leaf to-day, yellow all over, except its extremest
point, which was bright scarlet. It looked as if a drop of blood were
hanging from it. The first