Furls his bright parasol,

And, like a little hero, meets his fate.
The Gentians, very proud to sit up late,

Next follow. Every Fern is tucked and set
'Neath coverlet,

Downy and soft and warm.

No little seedling voice is heard to grieve
Or make complaints the folding woods beneath;
No lingerer dares to stay, for well they know
The time to go.

Teach us your patience brave,

Dear flowers, till we shall dare to part like you, Willing God's will, sure that His clock strikes true; That His sweet day augurs a sweeter morrow,

With smiles, not sorrow.

SUSAN COOLIDGE

DOWN TO SLEEP

NOVEMBER woods are bare and still;

November days are clear and bright; Each noon burns up the morning's chill; The morning's snow is gone by night; Each day my steps grow slow, grow light,

As through the woods, I reverent creep, Watching all things lie "down to sleep."

HELEN HUNT JACKSON

SHE

SWEETHEART TRAVELERS

In Winter Woodland

HE is not a sweetheart for the summer time only, this one of mine. Now that she is grown up, four years and six months is quite grown up for a sweetheart, she and I go for a walk even in the time of frost and snow.

We are interested in the problem how the birds and beasts of the fields and woodlands eat and sleep during this black and bitter winter weather. And very specially we try to find out how in this time of coal dearth, they manage to obtain fuel to keep the fires burning in their brave little hearts.

As she and I go toward the woods, the snow is crisp with frost and whistles beneath our feet. There is a sharpness also about our faces, as if Jack Frost had been sharpening the ends of our noses at his grindstone- as indeed he has. First we go through a little woodland ravine. It is almost waist deep in fallen leaves. The mighty beeches,

in all their plenitude of foliage, have stood for ages on the slopes above. And in this place all the summer you can listen to the noise of their rustling branches.

Now they are bare and stark, but the winds have swept the russet and orange leaves into this narrow defile. They are matted together on the surface with frost, but underneath is a whole underground world of dormant living things which we must explore some day.

But it is not until we get fairly into the woods and leave the shallow frozen snow of the fields behind us that we see any signs of life. The silence of these winter woods is their main characteristic. But that is chiefly owing to the observer. It strikes the wayfarer, tramping along at a good steady policeman's pace to keep himself warm, that there is not a single sign of life in all the frosty woodlands. And this is natural, for sylvan eyes and ears are exceedingly acute.

The stamp of a leather-shod foot can be heard many hundreds of yards. Then, at once, every bird and beast within the radius stands at attention, to judge of the direction of the noise. Crack goes another rotten branch. In a second all the woodland folk are in their holes in the deepest shrubberies or in the upper branches of the trees. The twang of the broken twig tells them that the intruder is off the beaten path, and is therefore probably a dangerous intruder.

But Sweetheart and I are warmly wrapped up. So we can crouch and watch in the lee of a dike, or stand wrapped in one great cloak behind a tree trunk. It is not of much use

to go abroad at noon. In the morning when the birds are at their breakfast is the time. Or better still, in the early afternoon when the low red sun has yet about an hour and a half to travel that is the time to call upon the bird folk in the winter season. They are busy, and have less time to give to their suspicions.

"The sun is like one big cherry," says Sweetheart, suddenly, looking up between the boughs; "like one big cherry in streaky jelly."

And it is so precisely. He lies low down in the south in a ruby haze of winter frost. The reflections on the snow are red also, and the shadows purple. The glare of the morning's white and blue is taken off by the level beams. Sweetheart has something to say on this subject. "Father, I thought the first day that the snow was prettier, but then it keeps us from seeing a great many pretty things."

Never mind, Sweetheart. It will also let us see a sufficient number of pretty things, if we only wait and look closely enough. But it is certainly true that snow does not help the color of a landscape. Still, as a compensation, there is brilliant color above our heads. The cherry-tinted sun, shining on the boles of the Scotch firs in the plantation, turns them into red gold, and causes their crooked branches to stand out against the dull indigo sky like veins of whitehot metal.

But look down, Sweetheart see the tracks on the snow. Can you tell me what all these are? There is the broadspurred arrow of that black vagrant, Mr. Rook, who is every