Overhead, a grey-blue sky, with the grey just now predominating, but a sky of promise, according to Mr. Higgins, with never a hint of breakdown. By and by the blue was to conquer, and the sportive winds were to let loose and drive before them the whitest and fleeciest of clouds, but always far up in high heaven. In the distance, just that delightful haze which the members of our Photographic Society so often referred to as "atmosphere"--a mighty word, full of mystic meaning. Here and there we pass a clump of trees, heavily hung with bright scarlet berries, whose abundance, our conductor informs us, foretells a winter of unusual severity. "That's t' way Providence provides for t' birds," he says. It may be so, though I daresay naturalists would offer another explanation. All the same, it is pleasing to see how the blackbirds and thrushes enjoy the feast, though they have already stripped some of the trees bare, and to that extent have spoiled the picture. Mr. Higgins was not disposed to leave us to the uninterrupted enjoyment of the landscape. He is a thick-set little man, on the wrong side of sixty, I should judge, with a clean top lip and a rather heavy beard; and I suspect that the hair upon his head is growing scanty, but that is a suspicion founded upon the flimsiest of evidence, as I have never yet seen him without the old brown hat which does service Sundays and weekdays alike. He jogged along by the side of the steady mare, who never varied her four-miles-an-hour pace, and who, I am sure, treated her master's reiterated injunction to "come up" with cool contempt; but he fell back occasionally to jerk a few disjointed remarks towards the occupants of the cart. "Fox," he said, inclining his head vaguely in the direction of a lonely farm away on the hillside to the right. "Caught him yesterda' ... been playin' Old 'Arry wi' t' fowls ... shot him ... good riddance." We made no comment beyond a polite and inquiring "Oh?" and he continued to be communicative. "Just swore, did Jake ... swore an' stamped about ... but t' missus ... now there's a woman for you ... she played Old 'Arry wi' him ... set a trap herself ... caught him." Mother Hubbard ventured to surmise that it was the fox which had been captured and not the husband, and Mr. Higgins acquiesced. "Nought like women for ... settin' traps," he continued, with a chuckle, shaking his head slowly for emphasis; "they're all alike ... barrin' they don't catch foxes... Man-traps mostly ... aye, man-traps." "That is just like Barjona, love," Mother Hubbard whispered; "he has never a good word for the women." "You have managed to evade them so far, Mr. Higgins?" I suggested meekly. "Nay ... bad job ... bad job ... been as big a fool as most ... dead this many a year ... dead an' buried twenty year ... wide awake now ... old fox now ... no traps ... no, no, no!"