trunks of the water elms and the silver maples, the red rags of the
birches and the delicate tracery of their spray, the ruby gold of the
willows, the shining white of the sycamores, the ashen green of the
poplars and the dark crimson of the wild rose and the red osier
dogwood,--all these are reflected as from a vast mirror.

There is not a ripple on the surface. But anon a belated ice floe
comes down the main channel and shows how swiftly the waters are
flowing now that they once more move "unvexed to the sea." There are
still some masses hugging the shore. One by one they slip into the
waters and float away,--just as a man's prejudices and delusions are
the last to leave him after the light of truth and the warmth of love
have set his soul free from the bondage of error and wrong.

The stillness is a marked contrast to the recent roar of the winds.
You may hear your watch ticking in your pocket. The leisurely tapping
of a downy woodpecker sounds like the ticking of a clock in a vast
ancestral hall. You may actually hear a squirrel running down a tree,
twenty rods away. He paws out an acorn and begins to eat. The noise of
your footstep seems like a profanation of holy ground. Also it
disturbs the squirrel who scurries up to the topmost twigs of an elm
nearly a hundred feet high. With a glass you may see his eyes shine as
he watches you. His long red tail hangs down still and straight and
there is not breeze enough, even up there, to stir it.

Gnats and moths flit in the soft sunlight and spiders run over tree
trunks while their single shining lines of silk are stretched among
the hazel.

Anon the bird chorus breaks out, full and strong. The winter birds