"Certainly not," replied I."I have got the dogs for company, and a book in my pocket.

I daresay I shall not read much, however, for it is so beautiful to sit here and watch the changing lights and shadows." And so it was, most beautiful and thoroughly delightful.

I sat on the short sweet grass, which springs upon the rich loam of fallen leaves the moment sunlight is admitted into the heart of a bush.

No one plants it; probably the birds carry the seeds; yet it grows freely after a clearing has been made.

Nature lays down a green sward directly on the rich virgin mould, and sets to work besides to cover up the unsightly stems and holes of the fallen timber with luxuriant tufts of a species of hart's-tongue fern, which grows almost as freely as an orchid on decayed timber.