CHAPTER XV 



Taps 



THE last fire of another year is 

 dying on the hearth. The swans 

 are flying low — now very low — and 

 presently they will fold their fluttering 

 wings and pass into the shadows that 

 shall last until the fires of yet another 

 spring shall be rekindled by our own 

 or other hands. 'Tis said the sweetest 

 of all songs sung by swans are always 

 their very last, and, as our walls re- 

 flect the gathering gloom, in fancy I 

 can hear what seems to be a fond 

 farewell to all the joys the vanished 

 hours have brought. 



We are closing the cottage tomorrow. 

 It is the end of our sixteenth season 

 within its walls. Somehow the little 

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