is particular moment the scene was brightened by the fleeting glow
with which Nature delights at times in heightening the beauty of her
imperishable creations. While the detachment was crossing the valley,
the rising sun had slowly scattered the fleecy mists which float above
the meadows of a September morning. As the soldiers turned to look back,
an invisible hand seemed to lift from the landscape the last of these
veils--a delicate vapor, like a diaphanous gauze through which the glow
of precious jewels excites our curiosity. Not a cloud could be seen on
the wide horizon to mark by its silvery whiteness that the vast blue
arch was the firmament; it seemed, on the contrary, a dais of silk,
held up by the summits of the mountains and placed in the atmosphere, to
protect that beautiful assemblage of fields and meadows and groves and
brooks.

The group of young officers paused to examine a scene so filled with
natural beauties. The eyes of some roved among the copses, which the
sterner tints of autumn were already enriching with their russet tones,
contrasting the more with the emerald-green of the meadows in which
they grew; others took note of a different contrast, made by the ruddy
fields, where the buckwheat had been cut and tied in sheaves (like
stands of arms around a bivouac), adjoining other fields of rich
ploughed land, from which the rye was already harvested. Here and there
were dark slate roofs above which puffs of white smoke were rising. The
glittering silver threads of the winding brooks caught the eye, here and
there, by one of those optic lures which render the soul--one knows not
how or why--perplexed and dreamy. The fragrant freshness of the autumn
breeze, the stronger odors of the forest, rose like a waft of incense to
the admirers of this beautiful region, who noticed with delight its
rare wild-flowers, its vigorous vegetation, and its verdure, worthy of
England, the very word being common to the two languages. A few cattle
gave life to the scene, already so dramatic. The birds sang, filling the
valley with a sweet, vague melody that quivered in the air. If a quiet
imagination will picture to itself these rich fluctuations of light
and shade, the vaporous outline of the mountains, the mysterious
perspectives which were seen where the trees gave an opening, or
the streamlets ran, or some coquettish little glade fled away in the
distance; if memory will color, as it were, this sketch, as fleeting as
the