September 26th.--One of those delicious autumnal days, when the air,
the sky, and the earth seem lulled into a universal calm, softer and
milder even than May. We sallied forth for a walk, in a mood
congenial to the weather and the season, avoiding, by mutual
consent, the bright and sunny common, and the gay highroad, and
stealing through shady, unfrequented lanes, where we were not likely
to meet any one,--not even the pretty family procession which in
other years we used to contemplate with so much interest--the
father, mother, and children, returning from the wheat-field, the
little ones laden with bristling close-tied bunches of wheat-ears,
their own gleanings, or a bottle and a basket which had contained
their frugal dinner, whilst the mother would carry her babe hushing
and lulling it, and the father and an elder child trudged after with
the cradle, all seeming weary and all happy. We shall not see such
a procession as this to-day; for the harvest is nearly over, the
fields are deserted, the silence may almost be felt. Except the
wintry notes of the redbreast, nature herself is mute. But how
beautiful, how gentle, how harmonious, how rich! The rain has
preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure of spring,
and the world of leaves has lost nothing of its midsummer
brightness, and the harebell is on the banks, and the woodbine in
the hedges, and the low furze, which the lambs cropped in the
spring, has burst again into its golden blossoms.

All is beautiful that the eye can see; perhaps the more beautiful
for being shut in with a forest-like closeness. We have no prospect
in this labyrinth of lanes, cross-roads, mere cart-ways, leading to
the innumerable little farms into which this part of the parish is
divided. Up-hill or down, these quiet woody lanes scarcely give us
a peep at the world, except when, leaning over a gate, we look into