"I will take this opportunity of observing, that they who have studied the appearances of nature feel that the superiority, in point of visual interest, of mountainous over other countries, is more strikingly displayed in winter than in summer. This, as must be obvious, is partly owing to the forms of the mountains, which, of course, are not affected by the seasons, but also, in no small degree, to the greater variety that exists in their winter than their summer coloring. This variety is such, and so harmoniously preserved, that it leaves little cause of regret when the splendor of the season has passed away. The oak coppices, upon the sides of the mountains, retain russet leaves; the birch stands conspicuous with its silver stems and puce-colored twigs; the hollies, with green leaves and scarlet berries, have come forth into view from among the deciduous trees, whose summer foliage had concealed them; the ivy is now plentifully apparent upon the stems and boughs of the trees, and among the wooded rocks. In place of the uniform summer-green of the herbage and fern, many rich colors play into each other over the surface of the mountains; turf, the tints of which are interchangeably tawny-green, olive, and brown, beds of withered fern and gray rocks being harmoniously blended together. The mosses and lichens are never so flourishing as in winter, if it be not a season of frost; and their minute beauties prodigally adorn the foreground. Wherever we turn, we find these productions of nature, to which winter is rather favorable than unkindly, scattered over the walls, banks of earth, rocks and stones, and upon the trunks of trees, with the intermixture of several species of small fern, now green and fresh; and, to the observing passenger, their forms and colors are a source of inexhaustible admiration."--WORDSWORTH. Thus far have I quoted the accurate and simple language of the great Poet of the Lakes, since, none other that I can choose would place before the eyes of my readers so vivid a reality of the scenery of that loveliest portion of picturesque England, in its finest aspect. It was not, indeed, quite so deep in the season, that all the changes so beautifully depicted above had yet occurred, when, late in a clear autumnal evening, Kenric and Edith stood together in the porch of their new home, gazing across the tranquil bosom of the little mere, and down the pastoral valley of the Kent, yet the face of the picture was close to that described in the quotations. The trees, in the level ground and in the lower valleys, had not lost all their verdure, though the golden, the russet, and the ruddy-red, had intermingled largely with the green; the meadows, by the water-edge, had not changed a tint, a shade of their summer glory, but all the hill-sides were as they stand painted by the poet-pen of the child of Nature.