Then I saw Nellie Ludd, or part of her. One could get only partial glimpses of Nellie in the woods--an upreaching arm, a strip of skirt, the sheen of her head. No, she was not golden-haired, or green-kirtled, and she did not lead the fancy back to Tempe and the vales of Arcady. Her dress was dingy brown in hue, and of cloth woven on her mother’s loom, but fashioned by herself as fittingly to her grace as fur to the marten or feathers to the swallow. Her eyes, if ever you met them, you would find to be honey-brown, like the first falling leaves. Her hair was the color of darkly shining smoke, and seemingly as loath to stay put. And the world she led the fancy to was a world which none of us have seen, but to which all secretly intend to go; a world whose picture every man holds in his heart, but will not look at in the light lest his neighbor come upon him suddenly. For, though we may have learned to love our neighbor as ourself, we have not yet learned to trust him. It was a gracious chance that brought me to the Point just as Nellie was leaving it. “Breaking off” was no longer difficult. That sputtering kettle--how remote and absurd it seemed! Descending late in the afternoon, my hills seemed to shine upon me, reflecting happy restoration. I passed by the pasture ridge where the silence was tapped by the falling chestnuts, and felt no impulse to defeat the squirrels and gophers of their prize. A bellwood crowned with purple bushels of grapes stirred no acquisitive instinct. I went calmly through the orchard, picking my way over the fallen fruit that no hand would rescue from decay; looked unwistfully at the pumpkins, cushaws, and “candy-roasters” that would feed nothing but the frost; and from my cabin step smiled at the flaming wing of a young maple that was like a vivid aspiration airily detaching itself from the clutch of utility and the lures of bounty. When I went in, Serena herself could not have cast a more contented eye about my kitchen, turbulent with unfinished tasks. The autumnal spirit had effectually bathed my lacerations. The box on which conveniently rested my little typewriter was invitingly near. I sank, a willing non-resistant, into a chair, and my hands mechanically sought the keys of the machine. For a few minutes I seemed to be having a pleasant time, with consciousness unaroused to the issue. Then I took out the sheet and read: “Goodly Autumn comes again; Fills my cupboard, fills my bin; Piles the leaves beneath my shed For my pony’s winter bed. Goodly Autumn comes again; Mellows apples, mellows sin; Drops the bars in every place; All the world is out to gaze. Goodly Autumn with her bread! Surely now the poor are fed; And in peace I may sit down To my fill of white or brown. Autumn is so good to me; I will walk abroad and see If the earth and if the sun Sup as well as I have done.”