One Indian Summer Day 225 



All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and 



the great sun 

 Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapours 



around him. 



If we have a single day that answers this descrip 

 tion, we have Indian Summer, and any one who 

 noted the beauty of Thursday knew such a day. 

 The lovely rarity had not come unheralded, for 

 had not the western wind of the day before blown 

 somewhat too briskly and too keenly, that also 

 would have answered the requirements. It is a 

 pity that the Century dictionary concedes the ap 

 plication of the term to any sort of mild weather 

 between September and December. This, to the 

 most of those who consult a dictionary, supposing 

 it to be a final authority and not a simple register 

 of usage, seems a sanction of the vulgar error 

 against which observers of Nature have been pro 

 testing for many years. We always have mild 

 weather in October, with blue haze on the hills 

 and quiet in the air. But the true Indian Summer 

 which Longfellow so well pictures comes at the 

 time of the feast of All Saints, November i , a day 

 or two before, a day or two after, and sometimes 

 lasts for a week or two or even more. The leaves 

 of the forest have fallen, save for the lingering 

 winterers of the oaks and beeches; the frosts 

 have blackened the clover and wilted the wild 



