the other a little impatient.

"Beautiful!" Mr. Carleton said at length.

"Yes," said Fleda gravely, "I think it's a pretty place. I like it up
here."

"We sha'n't catch many woodcock among these pines," said young Rossitur.

"I wonder," said Mr. Carleton presently, "how any one should have called
these 'melancholy days.'"

"Who has?" said Rossitur.

"A countryman of yours," said his friend glancing at him. "If he had been
a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none
of the sadness of decay--none of the withering--if the tokens of old age
are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious
life--the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in
common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning decay
and death into one's ears;--this speaks of Life. Instead of freezing all
one's hopes and energies, it quickens the pulse with the desire to
_do_.--'The saddest of the year'--Bryant was wrong."

"Bryant?--oh!"--said young Rossitur; "I didn't know who you were
speaking of."

"I believe, now I think of it, he was writing of a somewhat later time of
the year,--I don't know, how all this will look in November."