Two years have worn on their slow course, two tedious, weary years, and the first days of December have again arrived. We are now under a sunnier sky than that of England, and on the outskirts of an old, wide-spreading, perhaps, primeval forest, full of giant pines and hemlocks, and the monarch oak, beside which the axe of the back-woodsman has never yet been lifted. It is morning, and the sun gleams on the brilliant, dewy leaves of trees, in detached and scattered groups, each clad like the beloved of Jacob in his coat of many colours. The Indian summer, pleasant and evanescent, is on the wane, and there is a soft murmur of falling leaves, as the morning breeze steals through the rustling foliage, and save for that, and the usual sounds of the forest--the diapason of that natural organ--all is still, and hushed, and silent. We are on the eve of winter, we witness the russet leaves falling before every breath of wind, but yet the grass is as green as ever, and wild flowers and creepers, luxuriant among the tangled under-brush, festoon the branches with their hanging blossoms. Here is one leafy arcade, where sunshine and shadow dance in tremulous alternation on the soft velvety turf beneath; and hark! the silence is broken; there are the sounds of footsteps on the green sward, the crackling of dried twigs which have fallen, and the sounds of some approaching creature. The charm is broken, into this natural temple some one has entered; who can it be, and for what end does he come?