The spot chosen for this Indian Summer dance in the forest was near Cedar House. It was one of the natural open spaces, of which there were many in the wilderness, and it overlooked the river. High walls of thick green leaves enfolded it upon three sides, and it had a broad level floor of greener sward. It was sun-lit when the shadowed woods were dark. In the spring the greensward was gay with wild flowers; for it was in these open spaces between the trees that Nature displayed her most brilliant floral treasures which would not bloom in the shade. In the fall the leafy walls were more brilliant than the flowery sward, and they now rose toward the azure dome, gorgeously hung with bronzed and golden vines, blossoming here and there with vivid scarlet leaves. Below ran a dazzling border of shrubs--the sumac, which does not wait for the coming of the frost king to put on its royal livery; the sassafras already gleaming with touches of fire; the wild grape as red as the reddest wine, and rioting over all the rich green; the bright wahoo with its graceful clusters of flame-colored berries overrunning its soberer neighbors; the hazel, the pawpaw, the dog-wood, the red-bud, the spice-wood, the sweet-strife, the angelica. On the west the velvet turf began to unroll gently downward toward the river. The quiet stream ran with molten silver on that flawless October day, and deep shadows of royal purple hung curtains of wondrous beauty above the water. Back under the trees the shadows were darkly blue, bluer even than the cloudless sky arching so high above the tall tree-tops.