The October Season, of which I lately spoke, is practically over. "The misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind" are yielding place to cloud and storm. In a week's time London will have assumed its winter habit, and already people are settling down to their winter way of living. The last foreigner has fled. The Country Cousins have finished their shopping and have returned to the pursuit of the Pheasant and the Fox. The true Londoners--the people who come back to town for the "first note of the Muffin-bell and retreat to the country for the first note of the Nightingale"--have resumed the placidity of their normal life. Dinner-parties have hardly begun, but there are plenty of little luncheons; the curtains are drawn about four, and there are three good hours for Bridge before one need think of going to dress for dinner. And now, just when London is beginning to wear once again its most attractive aspect, at once sociable and calm, some perverse people, disturbers of the public peace, must needs throw everything into confusion by going abroad. Their motives are many and various. With some it is health: "I feel that I _must_ have a little sunshine, I have been so rheumatic all this autumn," or "My doctor tells me that, with my tendency to bronchitis, the fogs are really dangerous." With some it is sheer restlessness: "Well, you see, we were here _all_ the summer, except just Whitsuntide and Ascot and Goodwood; so we have had about enough of London. And our home in Loamshire is so fearfully lonely in winter that it quite gets on my nerves. So I think a little run will do us all good; and we shall be back by the New Year, or February at latest." With some, again, economy is the motive power; "What with two sons to allowance, and two still at school; and one girl to be married at Easter, and one just coming out, as well as a most expensive governess for the young ones, I assure you it is quite difficult to make two ends meet. We have got an excellent offer for Eaton Place from November to May, and some friends on the Riviera have repeatedly asked us to pay them a long visit; and, when that's done, one can live _en pension_ at Montreux for next to nothing." Others are lured abroad by the love of gambling, though this is not avowed: "I do so love Monte Carlo--not the gambling, but the air, and, even if one does lose a franc or two at the tables, I always say that we should lose much more at home, with Christmas presents, and Workhouse Treats, and all those tiresome things one has to do."