Outside the world took its way, unheeding, down the oft-trodden course of the year. The dank mists clung long to range and valley. They lifted at last, and then the torrents of the recent storm seemed to have been charged with pigments, for bold dashes of color, of red, of a luminous yellow, accented yet tempered by intervals of purplish and bronze intimations, emblazoned the mountain-side, where a monotony of summer greenth had lately held sway. The sun, coming again with a fluctuating brilliancy, with far-reaching misty refractions, and anon diaphanous veilings, to displace the surly usurpations of the grimmer gray elements, found a responsive glow in the sudden enrichment of the world. The far-away ranges had acquired a new charm of azure, an exquisitely pure tone, but of a dull, unglossy softness, all unlike the enameled blue of the great crystalline sky. The air was pervaded by a fine aroma. The wind had wings: one could sometimes see the shadows of these subtle, swift invisibilities flutter in the cloudless sunshine, so vaguely that before a glance might seek to measure an airy pinion the fleet thing was gone. Enchantment boldly wandered forth into the broad daylight, and all lavish splendors were vagrant. In every fence corner, the lush grasses and weeds, heavy with seeds, were bepainted with a brush full of color,—amber, and brown, and red; even the cobwebs, gossamer and silver in the sun, hung from rail to rail upon the old fences, and bedizened their gaunt homeliness with a delicate fibrous grace. Oh, gone was the summer, and it would come no more, however the recurrent season might wear its similitude. Marcella was living her life out; she was not the light-hearted creature that the spring had found her. She felt that she was older by many summers, and she did not need Andy Longwood to tell her so. “Ye hev got ter be ez solemn ez—I dunno what all. An’ ye used ter laff, an’ laff, an’ laff. Now ye can’t crack a joke ter save yer life. An’ ef ennybody else gits ter funnin’, ye don’t pay no ’tention ter what they say.”