ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy, deep throated hermit of
ravines--the russet, speckled-breasted lark--thrilled through the
woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast, cool, columned cloister.

The perfect tranquillity of the scene soothed the travel-weary
woman, as though nestling so close to the great heart of nature, had
stilled the fierce throbbing, and banished the gloomy forebodings of
her own; and she walked on, through the iron gate, where the bronze
mastiffs glared warningly from their granite pedestal--on into the
large undulating park, which stretched away to meet the line of
primitive pines. There was no straight avenue, but a broad smooth
carriage road curved gently up a hillside, and on both margins of
the graveled way, ancient elm trees stood at regular intervals,
throwing their boughs across, to unite in lifting the superb groined
arches, whose fine tracery of sinuous lines were here and there
concealed by clustering mistletoe--and gray lichen masses--and
ornamented with bosses of velvet moss; while the venerable columnar
trunks were now and then wreathed with poison-oak vines, where red
trumpet flowers insolently blared defiance to the waxen pearls of
encroaching mistletoe.

On the other side, the grounds were studded with native growth, as
though protective forestry statutes had crossed the ocean with the
colonists, and on this billowy sea of varied foliage Autumn had set
her illuminated autograph, in the vivid scarlet of sumach and black
gum, the delicate lemon of wild cherry--the deep ochre all sprinkled
and splashed with intense crimson, of the giant oaks--the orange
glow of ancestral hickory--and the golden glory of maples, on which
the hectic fever of the dying year kindled gleams of fiery red;--
over all, a gorgeous blazonry of riotous color, toned down by the