and narrow, and filled with trees; so that, in the summer, it is all in dark shadow.  Now, the foliage of the trees being almost entirely of a golden yellow, instead of being obscure, the glen is absolutely full of sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain or the mountain-tops.  The trees are sunshine, and, many of the golden leaves having freshly fallen, the glen is strewn with light, amid which winds and gurgles the bright, dark little brook.

* * * * *

October 28.—­On a walk yesterday forenoon, my wife and children gathered Houstonias.  Before night there was snow, mingled with rain.  The trees are now generally bare.

* * * * *

December 1.—­I saw a dandelion in bloom near the lake, in a pasture by the brookside.  At night, dreamed of seeing Pike.

* * * * *

December 19.—­If the world were crumbled to the finest dust, and scattered through the universe, there would not be an atom of the dust for each star.

* * * * *

KATHARINE MORNE.

PART II.

CHAPTER IV.

Soon after Fanny’s funeral, Miss Mehitable told me she had found out who the lady was that wished for my painting at the fair.  Her niece had pointed her out as she drove by in a barouche; and it was Miss Dudley.

My second copy was begun in the last fortnight of Fanny’s life, as she slept and I sat beside her.  I had not then had time, nor since had heart, to go on with it.  But now, seeing an opportunity to do something more to fulfil her wishes and to “do anything for Miss Dudley,” I took up my task again, and quickly finished it.  Then, still unsatisfied, I roamed through the woods, and along the shore, to gather specimens of the native plants, insects, and shells that seemed to me most like the foreign ones that I had copied, and grouped and painted and framed them like the first.  The Doctor left both for me at Miss Dudley’s gate, with this inscription on the envelope:  “A little offering of great gratitude, from a sister of Fanny Morne.”  I suppose, by the way, this is one source of the satisfaction that some real mourners find in wearing mourning, as they say, “for the dead,”—­a vague longing, like mine, after they have passed beyond human care, to do or sacrifice still something more for them.

After that, there seemed to be nothing more that I could do for Fanny, nor anything that, for myself, I cared to do.  From habit only, I employed myself.  Julia, as she begged that I would call her, had a large basket of baby-clothes cut out.  At that I seated myself after breakfast; and at that I often worked till bedtime, like a machine,—­startled sometimes from my revery, indeed, by seeing how much was done, but saying nothing, hearing little, and shedding not a tear.