n's memory of her mother is the cherished of her heart. Indeed,
sir, that is a strong, deep heart. You may never know it; but should
you, you will remember that I told you there was but one Alice. In all
her feelings she is intense; her love is a flame--her hate a thorn; the
fragrance of the one is an incense--the piercing of the other is deep
and agonizing. Shan't we go in, sir; I see the damp of the dew is on
your boot-toe, and you have been ill. The absence of the sun is the
hour for pestilence to ride the breeze in our climate, and you cannot
claim to be fully acclimated."

The autumn progressed, and the rich harvests were being gathered and
garnered. This season is the longest and the loveliest of the year in
this beautiful country. During the months of September, October, and
November, there ordinarily falls very little rain, and the temperature
is but slightly different. The evolutions of nature are slow and
beneficent, and it seems to be a period especially disposed so that the
husbandman should reap in security the fruits of the year's labor. The
days lag lazily; the atmosphere is serene, and the cerulean, without a
cloud, is deeply blue. The foliage of the forest-trees, so gorgeous and
abundant, gradually loses the intense green of summer, fading and
yellowing so slowly as scarcely to be perceptible, and by such
attenuated degrees accustoming the eye to the change, that none of the
surprise or unpleasantness of sudden change is seen or experienced.

The fields grow golden; the redly-tinged leaves of the cotton-plant
contrast with the chaste pure white of the lint in the bursting pods,
now so abundantly yielding their wealth; the red ripe berries all over
the woods, and the busy squirrels gathering and hoarding these and the
richer forest-nuts; the cawing of the crows as they forage upon the
ungathered corn, feeding and watching with the consciousness of
thieves, and the fat cattle ruminating in the shade, make up a scene of
beauty and loveliness not met with in a less fervid clime. The
entranced rapture which filled my soul when first I looked upon this
scene comes over me now with a freshness that brings back the delights
of that day with all its cherished memories, though fifty years have
gone and their sorrows have crushed out all but hope from the
heart--and all the pleasures of the present are these memories kindly
clustering about the soul. Perhaps their delights, and those who shared
them, will revive