CHAPTER XXI 



INDIAN SUMMER 



THERE are some laggard days in November 

 that have been left behind by the autumnal 

 procession. They are wayward, dilatory, 

 irrelevant days, and come in the rear of the re 

 treating season, like indolent nymphs that, dressed 

 for the nuptials, only arrived for the funeral, and 

 could not abandon their voluptuous moods. They 

 wear their bridal veils, and look at us reminiscently 

 through clouds of mist. These beautiful, dreamy 

 days appear to have been thrown off somewhere 

 like fragments by the revolving August, and they 

 come along like the Leonids, and as softly disap 

 pear. We call them the Indian summer. 



Sometimes, when there is a group of them hand 

 in hand, they re-create for us in a brief way and 

 vaporously the delights of the early fall, as if the 

 atmosphere had a memory and could, like our 

 selves, summon lost hours. They blow zephyr- 

 ously from the west and south; bring masquerading 



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