The last few days there has been quite a hard frost, and last night our garden thermometer registered ten degrees. This means, of course, death to everything not quite hardy; and even the hardiest hang their heads, and flop their leaves and look dying, though we know it is only affectation, and that a steady rain, bearing in every drop heat from the tropics, will revive many things again. I confess I like these sudden deaths in Nature. When the time comes, it is better that things should go, than linger on, as they do in very mild autumns. Never since I have lived here have the berries of the Pyracanthus and Holly been so fine; the latter are covered with berries. In old days they used to say it meant a cold winter and a providential providing of food for the birds. Now we say it means a fine spring and a wet autumn, which is just what we have had this year; but a wet autumn may mean a cold winter.