not gay. Further on were a
thicket of dull coloured alders at the edge of some flags, and
above them blazed a giant huckleberry bush in bright flame
colour; close by that were the purple red tufts of some common
sumachs -- the one beautifully rich, the other beautifully
striking. A little way from them stood a tulip tree, its green
changing with yellow. Beyond came cedars, in groups, wreathed
with bright tawny grape vines and splendid Virginia creepers,
now in full glory. Above their tops, on the higher ground, was
a rich green belt of pines -- above _them_, the changing trees of
the forest again.

Here shewed an elm its straw-coloured head -- there stood an
ash in beautiful grey-purple; very stately. The cornus family
in rich crimson -- others crimson purple; maples shewing yellow
and flame-colour and red all at once; one beauty still in
green was _orange-tipped_ with rich orange. The birches were a
darker hue of the same colour; hickories bright as gold.

Then came the rocks, and rocky precipitous point of
Shahweetah; and the echo of the row-locks from the wall. Then
the point was turned, and the little boat sought the bottom of
the bay, nearing Mountain Spring all the while. The water was
glassy smooth; the boat went -- too fast.

Down in the bay the character of the woodland was a little
different. It was of fuller growth, and with many fewer
evergreens, and some addition to the variety of the changing
deciduous leaves. When they got quite to the bottom of the bay
and were coasting along close under the shore, there was
perhaps a more striking display of Autumn's glories at their
side, than the rocks of Shahweetah could shew them. They
coasted slowly along, looking and talking. The combinations
were beautiful.

There was the dark fine bright red of some pepperidges shewing
behind the green of an unchanged maple; near by stood another
maple the leaves of which were all seemingly withered, a plain
reddish light wood-colour; while below its withered foliage a
thrifty poison sumach wreathing round its trunk and lower
branches, was in a beautiful confusion of fresh green and the
orange and red changes, yet but just begun. Then another
slight maple with the same dead wood-coloured leaves, into
which to the very top a Virginia creeper had twined itself,
and that was now brilliantly scarlet, magnificent in the last
degree. Another like it a few trees off -- both reflected
gorgeously in the still water. Rock oaks we