CHAPTER XL 



NOVEMBEK. 



The change of the landscape's prevailing tint from 

 green to brown is not a cheerful one. Look wheresoever 

 one may, he is pretty sure, in November, to drift into a 

 brown study, and this is seldom exhilarating. 



" Whither shall I wander ? " has been the initial ques- 

 tion of each available day, and now, a goodly portion of 

 the month having passed, I find my note-books recording, 

 to describe it somewhat figuratively, the fact that my 

 home has been the wheel's hub and my daily routes a se- 

 ries of closely set spokes. The dreary, lifeless, and repel- 

 lent features of many a ramble had better be passed by in 

 silence. Winter's skirmishers, the white frosts, have 

 strewed many a field with dead flowers, and who cares to 

 crush their bleached skeletons at every step ? But deflect- 

 ing a little from the preceding day's course, I have some- 

 times avoided these sad reminders of the defeated summer 

 and chanced upon sheltered nooks from which the besieg- 

 ing frosts have retired discomfited. One such, strange as 

 it may seem, was a wide reach of level meadow dotted 

 with old trees. The day was essentially forbidding. A 

 gray sky, a fog-patched atmosphere, and a fitful, chilly 

 breeze that smote my cheek whichever way I turned, were 

 discouraging at the outset, but abundant recompense 

 awaited me, for the meadow was yet beautiful, green as in 

 May, and rang with the voices of a thousand forms of life. 



