第84章

Yesterday I passed by an elm avenue, leading to a beautiful old house.The road between the trees was covered in all its length and breadth with fallen leaves--a carpet of pale gold.Further on, Icame to a plantation, mostly of larches; it shone in the richest aureate hue, with here and there a splash of blood-red, which was a young beech in its moment of autumnal glory.

I looked at an alder, laden with brown catkins, its blunt foliage stained with innumerable shades of lovely colour.Near it was a horse-chestnut, with but a few leaves hanging on its branches, and those a deep orange.The limes, I see, are already bare.

To-night the wind is loud, and rain dashes against my casement; to-morrow I shall awake to a sky of winter.