2.

AT BROCKENHURST.

T is the end of September; looking

and

out in the morn

ing from the win

dows of our inn bed-room we note, in the prospect of leafage beyond and away from the vil

lage of Brockenhurst, that the

mellow charm of early Autumn has already tinged the trees and hedgebanks. Across the way, on both sides, are white-walled cottages In front, through a wide opening between them

a prospect is opened up of garden and meadow enclosures with trees beyond whose greenery prettily contrasts with the roofs and walls of more cottages which peep out from their midst.

Turning from our inn to the right, in our first ramble from this forest village, and then again to the right a few yards down the 'street,' we find ourselves in an elm-and-oak bordered road. Gently ascending, the road crosses the railway whose lines have opened up' this woodland district to the world. Just beyond, if we turn round and look towards the north-east, we get a distant view of rolling forest stretching away over uplands, with here and there an open lawn contrasting with the darker hues of the greenwood. The road we are following is soon lost to the pedestrian at the point where it enters a private park guarded by the gilded iron-work of its lodge gate. But close by the gate, and standing in the public road, is an enormous Elm crowning a grassy mound. Passing to the right, under the spreading boughs of this noble tree, we come upon another stately Elm standing out from a half-circle of Oaks and Elms growing

within, but on the verge of, a meadow on our right. Just beyond this second specimen of Ulmus campestris we reach one of those familiar little patches of triangular turf which are so often found where roadways fork, for the reason that such spaces are large enough to enable them to keep free from the feet of wayfarers, and the wear of wheels. At this spot the road bends, and, taking the left turning, we pass between two ivy-clad cottages fronted by little gardens gay with the bright colours of cottage flowersthat on our right surrounded by mixed flower and fruit ground, shown-as we stop for a moment and peep over the high, quickset, dividing hedge-against a background of tall Elms and Oaks that border its opposite hedge and are in their turn contrasted by the red-walled village houses seen between them and by the great banks of white cloud which float airily in the sky above.

But passing beyond the extreme limits of these garden enclosures we come in sight of a typical English 'lane' which suddenly revealsas we turn our eyes from the homely entourage