What to-morrow is to be Human wisdom never learns. Sooner or later in October we have frost. The beautiful dewy morning two days ago was followed to-day by a no less beautiful morning; but the meadows were gray with frost. Says the physical geography: “When the weather is cold, so that but little vapor can be carried in the air, the dew-point may be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In this event what is deposited is solid frost.” The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and whatever it might have killed it compensated therefor by adding life to the air. Despite its beauty, the country was reeking with an unseen, unsuspected poison, but one none the less sure in its fell effects. How different to-day! There is evidence of vigor so widely spread that the blighted leaves and drooping blossoms may well be overlooked. No sounds are muffled; the faintest chirping of a distant bird falls sharply on the ear. The loose bark of the nut trees snaps and crackles at the squirrel’s touch, and not a tiny twig breaks in the timid rabbit’s path but we plainly hear it. The languor that held spellbound the woods and fields fled with the coming of that “killing frost.” Well can we spare the daintier bloom of summer, seeing how great a train of blessings follows in the wake of frost. There is a widespread impression that animal life is affected almost to the same extent as vegetation by these so-called killing frosts. This is not true. Insects are benumbed by it, but recover before noon. Frogs and salamanders are silenced and sluggish, but the morning sun renews their vigor; and who ever heard of a frostbitten bird? On the contrary, scarcely an hour after the sun rose on October 5th, there were a dozen birds, that, moping and peevish, had petulantly chirped for weeks, and now sang gayly. Later there was an old-time concert in the hillside thicket, even a brown thrush singing half his May-day song. Nature is renewed by a killing frost. It destroys the old to give place to the new; and this early autumn life that makes glorious October and softens the gloom of November has charms too little heeded. The world does not need to be embowered in green leaves to tempt the rambler. He who lives out of town well knows how many are the frosty days when the uplands and meadows alike teem with myriad forms of happy life. A Hermit for the Day. A peculiarly disagreeable northeast storm, continuing for some time, kept me out of the woods, and it was long after the October moon had fulled that my opportunity came. Then I turned hermit for the day.