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RURAL HOURS.
nut is beginning, to form, the heart slowly becoming a kernel, and the small yellow flower-cups turning gradually into the husk. On some bushes, these little cups are still yellow and flower-like; on others, they have quite a husky look. It takes these shrubs a full year to bring their fruit to maturity.
The green wheat-fields look vivid and bright lying about the gray farms. The lake is deep blue just now; it seems to be more deeply blue in the autumn than at other seasons; to-day, it is many shades darker than the sky, almost as blue as the water in Guido's Aurora.
