Page:Rural Hours.djvu/391

Rh their evergreen form, attracts the more attention. The abele-trees look oddly, with their fluttering leaves, silvery on one side, and gold-color on the reverse.

A robin flew past us on the highway; how often one meets them alone at this season, as if they had been left behind by their companions.

Thursday, 26th.—Cloudy, but mild. Long drive by the lake shore. Sky, water, and fields alike gray. Woods getting bare, yet vivid touches of yellow here and there, the orange of the birch, or lighter yellow of the aspen, enlivening the deepening grays. The village still looks leafy from the distance, chiefly from its willows. We passed a group of fine native poplars, very large, and quite green still; what is singular, a very large maple near them was also in full leaf, and partially green, though very many of its brethren are quite bare. These trees stood near the lake shore. The whole bank between the road and the water was still gay, with a fringe of underwood in color. Many asters of the common sorts were growing here, with golden-rods also, and a strawberry blite in crimson flower. The asters, and golden-rods, and nabali, and hawk-worts, along this bank have been innumerable through the season, and now that they are in seed, their downy heads look prettily mingled with the plants still in blossom, and the bushes still in leaf; the weather has been quiet, and the ripening blossoms, undisturbed by the wind, preserve the form of their delicate heads perfectly, some tawny, some gray, some silvery white, powdered flowers, as it were, like the powdered beauties of by-gone fashions. The pyramid golden-rod is really very pleasing in this airy, gossamer state. A large portion of our later flowers seem to ripen their seed in this manner. The