surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed is gone, though the rootless plants
of the delicate Bladder-Wort, spreading over acres of shallows, still
impurple the wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some souls
are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But others are like this
graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its
fellows around it, until perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the
accidental cohesion, sweeps them all away.

The season reluctantly yields its reign, and over the quiet autumnal
landscape everywhere, even after the glory of the trees is past, there
are tints and fascinations of minor beauty. Last October, for instance,
in walking, I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward.
Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce
disclosing their scarlet berries,--a wild Grape-vine, with its
fruit withered by the frost into still purple raisins,--and yellow
Beech-leaves, detaching themselves with an effort audible to the ear.
In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish
leaves,--pale-yellow Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,--purple
Viburnum-berries,--the silky cocoons of the Milkweed,--and, amid the
underbrush, a few lingering Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green,
and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills,
white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way up a sheltered
hill-side, one mass of canary-color, its fallen leaves making an
apparent reflection on the earth at its foot,--and then a real
reflection, fused into a glassy light intenser than itself, upon the
smooth, dark stream below.

The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and unconquerable
delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking
to veil her graceful boughs,--if not with leaves, then with feathery