of a cluster of belated evening
primroses.

Pausing on the small but pretty rustic bridge, Beryl leaned against the
interlacing cedar boughs twisted into a balustrade, and looked down at
the winding stream, where the clear water showed amber hues, flecked
with glinting foam bubbles, as it lapped and gurgled, eddied and sang,
over its bed of yellow gravel. Unacquainted with "piney-woods'
branches," she was charmed by the novel golden brown wavelets that
frothed against the pillars of the bridge, and curled caressingly about
the broad emerald fronds of luxuriant ferns, which hung Narcissus-like
over their own graceful quivering images. Profound quiet brooded in the
warm, hazy air, burdened with balsamic odors; but once a pine burr full
of rich nutty mast crashed down through dead twigs, bruising the satin
petals of a primrose; and ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy,
deep throated hermit of ravines--the russet, speckled-breasted
lark--thrilled through the woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast,
cool, columned cloister.

The perfect tranquillity of the scene soothed the travel-weary woman,
as though nestling so close to the great heart of nature, had stilled
the fierce throbbing, and banished the gloomy forebodings of her own;
and she walked on, through the iron gate, where the bronze mastiffs
glared warningly from their granite pedestal--on into the large
undulating park, which stretched away to meet the line of primitive
pines. There was no straight avenue, but a broad smooth carriage road
curved gently up a hillside, and on both margins of the graveled way,
ancient elm trees stood at regular intervals, throwing their boughs
across, to unite in lifting the superb groined arches, whose fine
tracery of sinuous lines were here and there concealed by clustering
mistletoe--and gray lichen masses--and ornamented with bosses of velvet
moss; while the venerable columnar trunks were now and then wreathed
with poison-oak vines, where red trumpet flowers insolently blared
defiance to the waxen pearls of encroaching mistletoe.

On the other side, the grounds were studded with native growth, as
though protective forestry statutes had crossed the ocean with the
colonists, and on this billowy sea of varied foliage Autumn had set her
illuminated autograph, in the vivid scarlet of sumach and black gum,
the delicate lemon of wild cherry--the deep ochre all sprinkled and
splashed with intense crimson, of the giant oaks--the or