As it has turned out, the caravanners have proved very little trouble to any, and to myself least of all. In a day or two, they moved down to the riverside, choosing one of the wildest and leafiest corners of the old abandoned chalk-quarry; and for a week past I have seen nothing of them but a wisp of blue smoke from afar. And, indeed, October in the country, if your design is to keep step and step with the month through all its bewildering changes, leaves you but scanty leisure for social traffic with your kind. Every day now there is something new to wonder at, and ponder over. To-day the gossamer was flying. If you stood in one of the low-lying sheltered meadows, and turned your back to the light, the air seemed full of these ashen-grey flecks, some only the merest threads, others of the breadth of a finger and several inches long. I have always believed that the gossamer spiders sit in the hedgerows spinning these fairy draperies, and letting them go upon the breeze to little more use and purpose than when a child blows soap-bubbles for the mere delight of watching them soar. At least, what end could possibly be served by them, other than the sufficient and obvious one of bringing a note of austere, chilly delicacy into the riotous colour of an October day? But idling along this morning with literally thousands of these grey filaments tempering the rich gold of the sunshine far and near, I chanced to stretch forth a hand and capture one of them. Between my fingers there hung a shred of fabric infinitely finer than anything that ever came from loom devised by man; and within it sat the gossamer spider herself, a shining black atom, evidently vastly surprised and alarmed at the sudden termination of her flight. After that I pulled down a score or so of these gossamer air-ships, and although a few were tenantless, the most of them bore a passenger embarked on, who shall say how long and how hazardous a voyage? Yet, while none fell to earth as I watched, but seemed to have the power of rising ever higher and higher, it is certain that the gossamer spider’s flight must end with each day’s sun. The heavy autumn dews must sweep the air clear of them at first tinge of dusk.