We arrived at our camp towards evening, and dined sumptuously on fresh venison and trout.  Our pioneer had provided a luxurious bed of boughs within, and had fashioned rude seats in front of our tents.  He had rolled the butt of a huge tree, which he had felled, to the proper place, against which to kindle our camp-fire, and we had a pleasant place to sit, with our pipes, in the evening, looking out over the water, listening to the pile-drivers, half a dozen of which were driving their stakes along the reedy shore, with commendable diligence.  The sunlight lay so beautifully on the hillsides, and contrasted so admirably with the deep shadows of the valley beneath, the lake was so calm and still, the old woods stood around so moveless and solemn, that one could scarcely persuade himself that he was not looking upon some gigantic picture, the fanciful grouping and transcendent coloring of some ingenious and winning artist.

“The hillsides about these lakes,” remarked the Doctor, “must be superlatively beautiful in the fall, when the forest puts on its autumnal foliage.  They present such a variety of trees, of so many different kinds, and the hills and mountains are so admirably arranged, that they must be gorgeous beyond description.  However we may prefer the green and living beauty of spring, when everything is so full of vitality, so buoyant and free, yet the autumn scenery is the most magnificent of any in the year.”

“Every season has its charms,” said Spalding, “Even the winter, with its cold, its dead and cheerless desolation, has its robe of chaste and peerless white, which, as well as that of the spring-time, the summer, and the autumn, has been the theme of song.  I agree with you, that in gorgeousness of beauty, there is no season so rich as the autumn.  Spring-time has its pleasant scenery, its genial days, its deep green, its flowers, and its singing birds; and these are all the more lovely because they follow so closely upon the cold storms, and bleak winds, the chilling and blank desolation of winter.  We love the spring because of its freshness, its pervading vitality, its recuperating influences.  Everybody loves the spring-time; everybody talks about the spring-time; poets sing of it; orators praise it; ‘fair women and brave men’ laud it; so that were spring-time human, and possessing human instincts, and subject to human frailties, it would have plenty of excuse, for becoming a very vain personage.

“Somebody has called the autumnal days the ‘saddest of the year.’  I have forgotten who he was, if I ever knew; but in my judgment, he was all wrong.  Dark days there are—­damp, chilly, misty, wet, and unpleasant days in autumn; days that make one relish a corner by an old-fashioned fire.  There are gusty, windy, capricious days in autumn, which nobody cares to praise, when the northwest wind goes sweeping over the forest, roaring among the trees, and whirling the sere leaves along the ground, and