XXV.

Yesterday I passed by an elm avenue, leading to a beautiful old house.

The road between the trees was covered in all its length and breadth with

fallen leaves--a carpet of pale gold. Further on, I came to a

plantation, mostly of larches; it shone in the richest aureate hue, with

here and there a splash of blood-red, which was a young beech in its

moment of autumnal glory.

I looked at an alder, laden with brown catkins, its blunt foliage stained

with innumerable shades of lovely colour. Near it was a horse-chestnut,

with but a few leaves hanging on its branches, and those a deep orange.

The limes, I see, are already bare.

To-night the wind is loud, and rain dashes against my casement; to-morrow

I shall awake to a sky of winter.

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