but they must not flatter themselves that their mere glimpse of country life—their mere snatch at its midsummer beauty, the one free-drawn breath of their wearied spirit—is acquaintance with it. As well might one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare's heroines, only in her court-dress at her uncle the duke's ball, guess at her infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and richest dresses then; if we may speak flippantly without offense to the simplicity of her majesty, she is then en pleine toilette. But any other of the twelve is more picturesque than the summer months: blustering March, with its gushing streams tossing off their icy fetters; changeful April, with its greening fields and glancing birds; sweet, budding, blossoming May; flowery June; fruitful September; golden, glorious October; dreary, thoughtful November; and all of Winter, with its potent majesty and heroic adversity.

But let our citizens come to our rural districts; the more, the better for them! Only let them not imagine they get that 'enough' which is 'as good as a feast.'

This preamble was naturally suggested by our autumnal life in the country, and by a recurrence to a late delightful passage through the 'White Hills of New Hampshire.'

'That resort of people that do pass
In travel to and fro'

during the intense months of July and August, we found in October so free from visitors, that we might have fancied ourselves the discoverers of that upland region of beauty, unparalleled, so far as we know, in all the traveled parts of our country. And for the benefit of those who shall come after us, for all who have their highest enjoyment, perhaps their best instruction, in Nature's 'free school,' we intended to give some brief notices of our tour, in the hope of extending the traveling season into October by imparting some faint idea of the startling beauty of this brilliant month in the mountains; but what we might have said was happily superseded.

At a little inn in a small town, after we came down from the 'high places,' we met a party of friends who had preceded us along the whole route by a day. A rain came on, and we were detained together for twenty-four hours. We agreed to pass the evening in a reciprocal reading of the brief notes of our journey. It came last to the turn of my friend, a very charming young person, whom I shall take the liberty to call Mary Langdon. She blushed and stammered, and protested against being a party to the contribution.

'Mine,' she said, 'is a long letter to my cousin, which I began before we left home.'

'So much the better,' we rejoined, 'for the pleasure will be the longer.'

'But it has been written in every mood of feeling.'

'Therefore,' we urged, 'the more variety.'