warming,--but in autumn a vintage that intoxicates all lovers of the
open air.

It is impossible not to dilate and expand under such skies. One
breathes deeply and steps proudly, and if he have any of the eagle
nature in him, it comes to the surface then. There is a sense of
altitude about these dazzling November and December days, of
mountain-tops and pure ether. The earth in passing through the fire of
summer seems to have lost all its dross, and life all its impediments.

But what does not the dweller in the National Capital endure in
reaching these days! Think of the agonies of the heated term, the
ragings of the dog-star, the purgatory of heat and dust, of baking,
blistering pavements, of cracked and powdered fields, of dead, stifling
night air, from which every tonic and antiseptic quality seems
eliminated, leaving a residuum of sultry malaria and all-diffusing
privy and sewer gases, that lasts from the first of July to near the
middle of September! But when October is reached, the memory of these
things is afar off, and the glory of the days is a perpetual surprise.

I sally out in the morning with the ostensible purpose of gathering
chestnuts, or autumn leaves, or persimmons, or exploring some run or
branch. It is, say, the last of October or the first of November. The
air is not balmy, but tart and pungent, like the flavor of the
red-cheeked apples by the roadside. In the sky not a cloud, not a
speck; a vast dome of blue ether lightly suspended above the world. The
woods are heaped with color like a painter's palette,--great splashes
of red and orange and gold. The ponds and streams bear upon their
bosoms leaves of all tints, from the deep maroon of the oak to the pale
yellow of the chestnut. In the glens and nooks it is so still that the