140 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



ing and may do so successfully if we keep in 

 certain paths, but a chance step may defeat our 

 over-brave conclusions. It is probable that be- 

 fore the day closes we will wander from the 

 meadow to the creek-side. If we do, the whole 

 scene is likely to be changed and our minds 

 changed with it. We cannot always force our- 

 selves to believe a fiction true, however pleasing 

 it may be. However riotous in the realms of 

 fancy, we cannot always tarry there, but must 

 walk at times soberly and in the presence of 

 plain facts. There are limitations even to our 

 imaginations. No one ever likens our autumn 

 foliage to a flower-garden. It is too pronounced 

 a phase of the passing year to be compared with 

 other phenomena, and so it was to-day when I 

 reached the wooded shores of a sluggish, un- 

 known creek. At every turn I saw the scarlet 

 lobelia, the torch that lights the footsteps of de- 

 parting summer, and I knew what these short- 

 ened days meant It was not strange that birds 

 were not singing, that the hum of insect life 

 was subdued, and even the clouds were anchored 

 in the dreamy skies. It is the day after, with 

 nothing but reminiscence filling each languid 



