n dwelling.

I do not now wonder that the girls lose their fine complexions at such an
early age, or that love here is merely an appetite to fulfil the main
design of Nature, never enlivened by either affection or sentiment.

For a few posts we found the horses waiting; but afterwards I was
retarded, as before, by the peasants, who, taking advantage of my
ignorance of the language, made me pay for the fourth horse that ought to
have gone forward to have the others in readiness, though it had never
been sent. I was particularly impatient at the last post, as I longed to
assure myself that my child was well.

My impatience, however, did not prevent my enjoying the journey. I had
six weeks before passed over the same ground; still it had sufficient
novelty to attract my attention, and beguile, if not banish, the sorrow
that had taken up its abode in my heart. How interesting are the varied
beauties of Nature, and what peculiar charms characterise each season!
The purple hue which the heath now assumed gave it a degree of richness
that almost exceeded the lustre of the young green of spring, and
harmonised exquisitely with the rays of the ripening corn. The weather
was uninterruptedly fine, and the people busy in the fields cutting down
the corn, or binding up the sheaves, continually varied the prospect. The
rocks, it is true, were unusually rugged and dreary; yet as the road runs
for a considerable way by the side of a fine river, with extended
pastures on the other side, the image of sterility was not the
predominant object, though the cottages looked still more miserable,
after having seen the Norwegian farms. The trees likewise appeared of me
growth of yesterday, compared with those Nestors of the forest I have
frequently mentioned. The women and children were cutting off branches
from the beech, birch, oak, &c, and leaving them to dry. This way of
helping out their fodder injures the trees. But the winters are so long
that the poor cannot afford to lay in a sufficient stock of hay. By such
means they just keep life in the poor cows, for little milk can be
expected when they are so miserably fed.

It was Saturday, and the evening was uncommonly serene. In the villages
I everywhere saw preparations for Sunday; and I passed by a little car
loaded with rye, that presented, for the pencil and heart, the sweetest
picture of a harvest home I had ever beheld. A little girl was mounted a-
straddle on a shaggy ho