“This,” said my husband, “is true philosophy; and the more forcible, because you not only recommend the maxim but practise it also.”

I had reckoned much on the Indian summer, of which I had read such delightful descriptions, but I must say it has fallen far below my expectations.  Just at the commencement of this month (November) we experienced three or four warm hazy days, that proved rather close and oppressive.  The sun looked red through the misty atmosphere, tinging the fantastic clouds that hung in smoky volumes, with saffron and pale crimson light, much as I have seen the clouds above London look on a warm, sultry spring morning.

Not a breeze ruffled the waters, not a leaf (for the leaves had not entirely fallen) moved.  This perfect stagnation of the air was suddenly changed by a hurricane of wind and snow that came on without any previous warning.  I was standing near a group of tall pines that had been left in the middle of the clearing, collecting some beautiful crimson lichens, S------ not being many paces distant, with his oxen drawing fire-wood.  Suddenly we heard a distant hollow rushing sound that momentarily increased, the air around us being yet perfectly calm.  I looked up, and beheld the clouds, hitherto so motionless, moving with amazing rapidity in several different directions.  A dense gloom overspread the heavens.  S------, who had been busily engaged with the cattle, had not noticed my being so near, and now called to me to use all the speed I could to gain the house, or an open part of the clearing, distant from the pine-trees.  Instinctively I turned towards the house, while the thundering shock of trees falling in all directions at the edge of the forest, the rending of the branches from the pines I had just quitted, and the rush of the whirlwind sweeping down the lake, made me sensible of the danger with which I had been threatened.

The scattered boughs of the pines darkened the air as they whirled above me; then came the blinding snow-storm:  but I could behold the progress of the tempest in safety, having gained the threshold of our house.  The driver of the oxen had thrown himself on the ground, while the poor beasts held down their meek heads, patiently abiding “the pelting of the pitiless storm.”  S------, my husband, and the rest of the household, collected in a group, watched with anxiety the wild havoc of the warring elements.  Not a leaf remained on the trees when the hurricane was over; they were bare and desolate.  Thus ended the short reign of the Indian summer.

[Illustration:  Newley cleared Land]