The path which leads to the spring has this unfailing charm for me, and for many who have long ceased to follow its winding course.

At this season it is touched here and there by the autumnal splendour, and fairly riots in the profusion of the golden-rod, whose yellow plumes are lighting the retreating steps of summer across the fields.

Great masses of brilliant wood-bine cover the stone walls and hang from the trees along the fences.

The corn, cut and stacked in orderly lines, is not without its transforming touch of colour; and while the trees still wait for the coronation of the year Nature seems to have passed along this path and turned it into a royal highway.

As it approaches the woods, one gets glimpses of the village spires in the distance, and finds a new charm in this borderland between sunlight and shadow, between solitude and the companionship of human life.