On first leaving the house, I feel dashed and sobered.  The inertness and phlegmatic apathy of dry and ugly old age seem to weigh upon and press down the passionate life of my youth, but I have not crossed a couple of ploughed fields and seen the long slices newly ploughed, lying rich and thick in the sun; I have not heard two staves of the throstle’s loud song, before I have recovered myself.  I also begin to sing.  I am not very harmonious, perhaps, I never am; and I wander now and then from the tune; but it is good enough for the stalking geese, my only audience, except a ragged jackass, who, moved by my example, lifts his nose and gives vent to a lengthy bray of infinite yearning.

I am half-way home now.  I have reached the wood—­Brindley Wood; henceforth I am not very likely to forget its name.  The path dips at once and runs steeply down, till it reaches the bottom of the dell, along which a quick brook runs darkling.  In summer, when the leaves are out it is twilight here at high noonday.  Hardly a peep of sky to be seen through the green arch of oak and elm; but now, through the net-work of wintry twigs one looks up, and sees the faint, far blue, for the loss of which no leafage can compensate.  Winter brownness above, but a more than summer green below—­the heyday riot of the mosses.  Mossed tree-trunks, leaning over the bustling stream; emerald moss carpets between the bronze dead leaves; all manner of mosses; mosses with little nightcaps; mosses like doll’s ferns; mosses like plump cushions; and upon them here and there blazes the glowing red of the small peziza-cups.

I am still singing; and, as no wind reaches this shadowed hollow, I have taken off my hat, and walk slowly along, swinging it in my hand.  It is a so little-frequented place, that I give an involuntary start, and my song suddenly dies, when, on turning a corner, I come face to face with another occupant.  In a moment I recover myself.  It is only Frank, sitting on a great lichened stone, staring at the brook and the trees.

“You seem very cheerful!” he says, rising, stretching out his hand, and not (as I afterward recollect) expressing the slightest surprise at our unlikely rencontre.  “I never heard you lift up your voice before.”

“I seem what I am,” reply I shortly.  “I am cheerful,”

“You mostly are.”

“That is all that you know about it,” reply I, brusquely, rather resenting the accusation.  “I have not been at all in good spirits all this—­this autumn and winter, not, that is, compared to what I usually am.”

“Have not you?”

“I am in good spirits to-day, I grant you,” continue I, more affably; “it would be very odd if I were not.  I should jump out of my skin if I were quite sure of getting back into it again; I have had such good news.”

“Have you?  I wish I had” (sighing).  “What is it?”

“I will give you three guesses,” say I, trying to keep grave, but breaking out everywhere, as I feel, into badly-suppressed smiles.