Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May."_

From the summit of a thinly-treed hill we look across a wide valley on
the right which gradually slopes up to a high ridge three miles away.
On the left there is a clear view for fully twenty miles, out to where
the lavender haze hangs softly on the forest-fringed horizon. The
plowed fields lie mellow and chocolate-hued in the sunlight and the
russet meadows are beginning to show a faint undertone of green. The
golden green of the willow fences which separate some of the fields
shines from afar in the abundant light and there is a quickening
crimson in the tops of the red maple groves around the homesteads. The
deep blue of the high-domed sky gives a glory to the landscape. The
few, far clouds, soft and white, float slowly in the azure sea and now
and then approach the throne of the king of day, sending dark shadows
chasing the sunlight over the smiling fields. When these shadows reach
the nearer woodlands across the valley on the right it is as if a
moving belt of dark pines was swiftly passing through the deciduous
forest. We think of Birnam wood removing to Dunsinane, but that was
trivial compared with this. The dark belt of shadow makes a strong and
beautiful contrast to the reddish brown and gray of the winter woods.

The river is more than bank full. Shut in on one side by the high
ridge upon which we are standing it has spread over half a mile of
bottom on the other side. Once more, after many months of waiting we
rejoice in the gleam of its waters. The broad valley, which has so
long been paved with white, is bottomed with amethyst now, the fainter
reflection of the azure sky above. The trees which have so long stood
comfortless again see their doubles in the waters below. The huge gray