the
autumn noon
Mrs Rowland would have laughed at the idea of a walk on a December afternoon , if she had happened to know of the circumstance ; but others than lovers might have considered it pleasant . The sun was still an hour from its setting ; and high in the pale heaven was the large moon , ready to shine upon the fields and woods , and shed a milder day . No frost had yet bound up the earth ; it had only stripped the trees with a touch as gentle as that of the fruit-gatherer . No wintry gusts had yet swept through the woods ; and all there was this day as still as in the autumn noon , when the nut is heard to drop upon the fallen leaves , and the light squirrel is startled at the rustle along its own path . As a matter of course , the lovers took their way to the Spring in the Vernon woods , the spot which had witnessed more of their confidence than any other . In the alcove above it they had taken shelter from the summer storm and the autumn shower ; they had sat on its brink for many an hour , when the pure depths of its rocky basin seemed like coolness itself in the midst of heat , and when falling leaves fluttered down the wind , and dimpled the surface of the water . They now paused once more under shelter of the rock which overhung one side of the basin , and listened to the trickle of the spring .