Consequently, I told myself this day that I was not well—that I had been overdoing, and that I had best “go easy for a spell.” After which concession to my interior governor, I proceeded to apologize to my neighbors; to call my dogs—not to apologize to them, but to solicit their company—and then to hie me away to the lake, remembering to walk feebly as long as I was in sight. I didn’t go down to the beach, but plunged into the cool, comforting heart of a ravine; fathomed its depths, with a feeling of delightful seclusion, and came out on the thither side, to find myself in the glowing October woods. Ill? I never felt better in my life! Good, rich streams of blood coursed through my veins, and painted a warm tint in my cheeks. At that moment I hope I looked a trifle like Nature, who was in the height of her being; in a sort of tropical luxuriance, like a beautiful woman at the very summit of maturity and perfection. I put out my hands toward a clump of sumach—I was not cold, but its brilliant warmth lured me as does a glowing fire. It permeated my very being, and set my soul a-throbbing. There had been rain, and then warmth, and October had caught all the prismatic colors of the drops of water, and was giving them forth with Southern prodigality. The birds bent over the swaying daisies, and sang soft love-notes into their great, dark eyes, while I looked on in an ecstasy of wonder and delight—the gold of the daisies, the gold of the sunlight, and the glow in my heart, seeming in a way all one—part and parcel of the munificence and cheering love of the Father. It is a glorious world, and it is glorious to live therein. The very air about me—the air I was breathing in, seemed to palpitate color and brilliant beauty. I talked to Duke about it, and he looked around him with a certain air of admiration depicted on his noble, fond old face. Fanchon was frivolous, as usual, and wanted to be running giddily about, hunting rabbits and the like; but I made her sit beside me, for it seemed a desecration every time the October silence of those woods was broken by aught save the dropping of a ripened nut, or the whirr of a homing bird. It was at the close of this mellow day that I sat in my library alone, before a hickory fire. Alone, did I say? Nay, Mrs. Simpson sat before me in the opposite rocker. You could not have seen her, or heard her, but she was there, and was complaining of Mr. Simpson, saying he rarely ever invited her to go anywhere; and as she talked I recalled a certain evening when I had been her guest—included in an invitation to attend a spectacular entertainment given by the country club, at a spot some distance from our homes, and I said: