The last storm of Autumn, or the first of Winter, call it which you will, has strewed the bosom of the all-receiving earth with the few leaves that were still clinging, though dead, to the already sapless branches; and now all stand bare at once,--spreading out their innumerable ramifications against the cold, gray sky, as if sketched there for a study, by the pencil of your only successful drawing-mistress--Nature. Of all the numerous changes that are perpetually taking place in the general appearance of rural scenery during the year, there is none so striking as this which is attendant on the falling of the leaves; and there is none in which the unpleasing effects so greatly predominate over the pleasing ones. To say truth, a Grove, denuded of its late gorgeous attire, and instead of bowing majestically before the winds, standing erect and motionless while they are blowing through it, is "a sorry sight," and one upon which we will not dwell. But even this sad consequence of the coming on of Winter, sad in most of its mere visible effects, is not entirely without redeeming accompaniments; for in most cases it lays open to our view objects that we are glad to see again, if it be but in virtue of their association with past years; and in many cases it opens vistas into sweet distances that we had almost forgotten, and brings into view objects that we may have been sighing for the sight of all the Summer long. Suppose, for example, that the summer view from the windows of a favourite sleeping-room is bounded by a screen of shrubs, shelving upward from the turf, and terminating in a little copse of Limes, Beeches, and Sycamores--the prettiest boundary that can greet the morning glance, when the shutters are opened, and the Sun slants gaily in at them, as if glad to be again admitted. How pleasant is it,--when, as now, the winds of Winter have stripped the branches that thus bound our view in,--to spy beyond them, as if through net-work, the sky-pointing spire of the distant village church, rising from behind the old Yew-tree that darkens its portal; and the trim parsonage beside it, its ivy-grown windows glittering perhaps in the early sun! Oh--none, but those who _will_ see the good that is in everything, know how very few evils there are without some of it attendant on them.