Once out of this open space--this forest cemetery, one might say, though the dead were not buried, but stood upright like bleached skeletons, with arms outstretched--I was again immersed in leafy silence, which lasted till I approached the lake. Here I heard before me the tweeting of sandpipers, and presently came in sight of two solitaries (migrants already, though it was only the 4th of August), each bobbing nervously upon its boulder a little off shore. The eye of the ornithologist took them in: dark green legs; dark, slender bills; bobbing, not teetering--_Totanus_, not _Actitis_. Then the eyes of the man turned to rest upon that enchanting prospect: Eagle Cliff in shadow, Profile Mountain in full sun, and the lake between them. The spirit of all the hours I had ever spent here was communing with me. I blessed the place and bade it good-by. “I will come again if I can,” I said, “and many times; but if not, good-by.” I believe I am like the birds; no matter how far south they may wander, when the winter is gone they say one to another, “Let us go back to the north country, to the place where we were so happy a year ago.” The last day of my visit, the only warm one, fell on Sunday; and on Sunday, by all our Franconia traditions, I must make the round of Landaff Valley. I had been into the valley once, to be sure, but that did not matter; it was not on Sunday, and besides, I did not really go “round the square,” as we are accustomed to say, with a fine disregard of mathematical precision. After all, there is little to tell of, though there was plenty to see and enjoy. The first thing was to get out of the village; away from the churches and the academy, and beyond the last house (the last village house, I mean), into the company of the river, the long green meadow and the larch swamp,--a goodly fellowship. A swamp sparrow trilled me a welcome at the very entrance to the valley, as he had done before, and musical goldfinches accompanied me for the whole round, till I thought the day should be named in their honor, Goldfinch Sunday.