escape
observation, I could only conclude that it was a white stoat.

Stoats, as remarked previously, are numerous in these hedges, and it was
quite possible for a white one to be among them. The white stoat may be
said to exactly resemble the ermine. The interest of the circumstance
arises not from its rarity, but from its occurring so near the
metropolis.

A BROOK

Some low wooden rails guarding the approach to a bridge over a brook one
day induced me to rest under an aspen, with my back against the tree.
Some horse-chestnuts, beeches, and alders grew there, fringing the end
of a long plantation of willow stoles which extended in the rear
following the stream. In front, southwards, there were open meadows and
cornfields, over which shadow and sunshine glided in succession as the
sweet westerly wind carried the white clouds before it.

The brimming brook, as it wound towards me through the meads, seemed to
tremble on the verge of overflowing, as the crown of wine in a glass
rises yet does not spill. Level with the green grass, the water gleamed
as though polished where it flowed smoothly, crossed with the dark
shadows of willows which leaned over it. By the bridge, where the breeze
rushed through the arches, a ripple flashed back the golden rays. The
surface by the shore slipped towards a side hatch and passed over in a
liquid curve, clear and unvarying, as if of solid crystal, till
shattered on the stones, where the air caught up and played with the
sound of the bubbles as they broke.

Beyond the green slope of corn, a thin, soft vapour hung on the distant
woods, and hid the hills. The pale young leaves of the aspen rustled
faintly, not yet with their full sound; the sprays of the
horse-chestnut, drooping with the late frosts, could not yet keep out
the sunshine with their broad green. A white spot on the footpath yonder
was where the bloom had fallen from a blackthorn bush.

The note of the tree-pipit came from over the corn--there were some
detached oaks away in the midst of the field, and the birds were
doubtless flying continually up and down between the wheat and the
branches. A willow-wren sang plaintively in the plantation behind, and
once a cuckoo called at a distance. How beautiful is the sunshine! The
very dust of the road at my feet seemed to glow with whiteness, to be
lit up by it, and to become another thing. This spot henceforward was a
place of pilgrimage.

Looking that morning over the