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cottages and orchards-one cottage on our lefthand side having its walls nearly covered by rosy and tempting peaches. Tempting' indeed they are, and inquiring at the cottage door we learn from the owner-a peasant woman-that her peach wall is her fruit market and that she will sell us as many as we wish. So we start for our forest walk with a store of peaches for refreshment on the way; and that pretty cottage on the hill with its luscious wall-fruit will long occupy a green and pleasant corner in our

memory.

But now our road becomes steep and we begin to climb a veritable hill. We wind on, and, less than halfway from the top, we pass another little cottage fronted, next the road, by a grassy bank, on which the sweet little blossoms of the Daisy are rising amidst the freshest of green, daisy leavesas freshly as if it were early Spring instead of Autumn. The road gets steeper as we ascend it, and the hedgebanks, on either side of it, get higher and higher. From their shady recesses Ferns now peep out-Male Fern, Prickly Shield Fern and the glossy, beautiful fronds of the Black

Maidenhair Spleenwort. Amidst the mass of greenery, conspicuous amongst which is the foliage of Maple and Briar, the Red Robin is blushing deeply and the leaves of the Meadow Cranesbill are flushing brilliantly with their autumnal colouring. Our road now gets steeper. It is no longer hedges that rise on each side of us but steeply-sloping embankments forming the boundaries of the road where the latter has been cut through the hillside-embankments on which the Brake and Male Fern have room to gracefully outspread their beautiful fronds, mingled with which, here and there, are those of the handsome Broad Buckler Fern. On the left-hand side of our way the steeply-sloping embankment is covered with a thickly-matted mass of Brake, Briar and Hazel, whilst Apple trees growing in the ground above peep out over the hedgebank greenery showing abundantly-crowded, golden fruit flushed with crimson, and mossed and lichen-covered branches. From the hedge mass, too, the Maple shows a tinge of orange red, the Hazel is yellowing and embrowning, and the Dogwood exhibits a profusion of clustering purple. Oak sapling

and Beech leaves are reddening and Bracken tips are embrowning, whilst Bramble fruit, Red Robins and Poppies, here and there, peep out into the lane-the Common Polypody growing shyly in the shady recesses of tree stumps embedded in the leaf mould where its roots are hiding.

Near the brow of the hill we reach, on our left, a broken, grassy space where the glossy jet of luscious blackberries gleams from amongst the Brambles. From the roadway, at this spot, we can look down over the hill between overarching trees at the valley we have just left and see the church tower and houses of Fordingbridge peeping out from between the trees. At the top of the grassy space a gateway, crowning the embankment, leads into a meadow which extends over the brow of the hill. From this standpoint we can secure a beautiful prospect of the valley below, where the Avon, winding and turning, flows through the water-meadows in the valley bottom and meanders around the town which, from where we stand, is prettily screened by trees. Looking down towards the north-west there is a fine

prospect of fertility suggestive of agricultural industry-the yellow stubble of cornfields, green meadows, trees-thickly clustering in placesand corn ricks, all blended and mingled into one attractive picture, which is spread out in all its largeness before the eye. The tree heads are mellow with autumnal colouring-Oaks on the hill where we stand having the golden tinge which betokens the approaching fall. A murmur of water reaches us from the point, away below, at which the Avon flows over its weir. Following the direction of the sound the eye takes in a prospect of orchard and fruit garden on the slope of the hillside; then, continuing the same line of vision, one rapid glance will include the whole of the smiling valley from where the town, at the foot of the declivity, nestles in its lowest part, away to the dark line of hills that crown the far uplands.

Regaining the road we ascend to the top of the hill, and at a cross road a little further on take a turning to the left in a north-easterly direction, between leafy hedgebanks where Oak, Holly, Hazel and Hawthorn are intermingled with Brake,

Foxglove and Nettle, with Bryony, Honeysuckle and Bramble. Looking towards the east over the hedgebanks we can see the dark edge of the open uplands of the forest whose empurpled surface rises above and contrasts with the lighter and brighter hue of the meadows and hedges which lie between it and our point of view-green meadows and hedges brightened by crimson haws and the glossy berries of the Dogrose.

Slightly ascending, our road now leads us through the little village of Godshill; and here, as elsewhere, the change is marked between the forest of to-day and the forest of the past. From the end of the village, opposite to that we have entered on the way from Fordingbridge, we can see the brown border of the open forest. But there is evidence extant that little more than a hundred years ago Godshill was densely covered by Oaks and Hollies. These have now mostly gone and their place is occupied by farmstead, meadow and cornfield enclosures. Leaving the village at its further end we keep straight on into the forest-our road leading in an easterly direction. The ground now rises and presently we reach a point from

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