One Indian Summer Day 227 



as the sough of the zephyr disturbed them, and 

 out from the witch hazel covert the grouse now 

 and then dashed whirring. Over the broad farms 

 lightly there brooded the sense of contentment, 

 and the forests sighed gently as through them the 

 breezes caressingly wandered. All the broad 

 earth seemed transmuted to a region of dreaming 

 enchantment, as if at a breath it might vanish, 

 as if all that was seen was but Maya ; the sun in 

 its shining subdued, the vault of the high skyey 

 spaces, no less than the sinuous river that gleamed 

 white far into the cloud-bank of vapours that 

 clung close to earth and shut in the common hori 

 zon, or the hills that were lost as they rose in 

 the veil of the magical distance. 



For this day indeed all the autumn had ingen 

 uously been preparing, with frosts in this latitude 

 delayed so that every tree in the forest has had 

 its full opportunity to blossom at its best, and so 

 splendid masses of orange and gold and pale 

 lemon in the sugar orchards, of brightest red in 

 soft maples, so rich ranges of brown in elms, 

 beeches and chestnuts, the hickories gamboge 

 yellow, the sumachs scarlets and crimsons, the 

 glowing viburnums and cornels, mingled and 

 qualified by the heart-reds and maroons of oaks 

 along the mountain sides, have seldom been sur 

 passed. Even the apple trees, whose foliage usu- 



