ground. A man with a dog is going across the park, and the dog is running about. See! the deer have set eyes on him, and have started up. They are slowly following, with a fine antlered stag at the head of them; and if the dog does not keep his distance, and make the best of his way out of the park, he will have reason to remember it as long as he lives. There! Now, if you will take the besoms into the tool-house, I will carry away all the leaves that we have swept together."

MAURICE was always respectful in his behaviour to the old gardener, and never, even in his liveliest moments, took liberties with him. This made Michael doubly willing to give him pleasure. The next time they met in the garden, Maurice began the conversation thus:

"I hope that you are in a talking humour,

Michael, for I am just in the humour to listen to you. We are getting sadly too near the end of the year in the account of the country, for you told me about October last; so we shall have but two more months."

"We shall find something else to talk about, never fear, after the account of the country is finished. One thing, however, we must do; we must take care to talk profitably. It would be a sad waste of time to discourse all the year, and get no good from it."

Yes, it would; but there is no fear of that in talking with you, Michael. I remember the pictures you gave me the last time. There was drunken Robert, and the boys playing at hare and hounds, and the deer under the tree in Stoke Park, and that famous one of the bear, the monkey, and the dancing dogs. I hardly think you can give me such good ones for November."

Perhaps not, but we shall see, by and bye. Mine has been a hard day's work to-day, and I shall enjoy a little talk with you about the country, for that will bring old times before me."

66

Ay, you can remember things a great many years ago, about November in the country."

"Yes, I can go back to the Novembers of my childhood, when many who are now in the graveyard were children with me. The old tree was

then standing on the village green, but it has long since been stubbed up by the roots.

How well do I remember,

While I was yet a child,
The fifth of bleak November,

When the wind was loud and wild,

The leaves were flying in the blast,
The night was dark and cold;
But many a year since then has past,
And I am growing old!

In November the farmer goes to market with his samples of wheat and barley, for he has to look forwards to his rent-day. What with wages, tithes, poor-rates, rent, taxes, and other expenses, he has a great deal of money to pay away in the course of a year. It is well for him, then, that he has wheat, barley, oats, peas, and beans to sell, as well as bullocks, cows, and calves, sheep, pigs, and poultry. Unless it is very fine, November is one of the gloomiest months of the year in the country. There are often more fogs than you know what to do with."

"Not many birds and flowers?"

"November is not the month for birds, flowers, or insects, though there are some of all these to be seen in it. The redwing and the fieldfare are busy among the berries; the water-ouzel and watercrake are beside the brook; the starling is at the

top of the tree; and if the sun shines, the skylark will mount up towards the skies. Besides these, a few magpies in the homestead, or a rook in

see a tortoiseshell butterfly in the shine, and here and there a solitary gnat or fly on the windowpanes; but this is rare. The pride of the garden, too, is over, and in the fields the berries take the lead of the flowers."

"I should like the country better in most of the months than in November."