spital, the second man to the undertaker."

Chapter XVII

Ah, the vanity of Dawn! Like a Venus she rises from her bath of
opalescent mists and dons a gown of pearl. But this does not please
the coquette. Her fancy turns from pearl to green, to amber, to pink,
to blue and gold and rose, an inexhaustible wardrobe. She blushes, she
frowns, she hesitates; she is like a woman in love. She casts abroad
her dewy jewels on the leaves, the blades of grass, the tangled laces
of the spiders, the drab cold stones. She ruffles the clouds on the
face of the sleeping waters; she sweeps through the forests with a low
whispering sound, taking a tithe of the resinous perfumes. Always and
always she decks herself for the coming of Phoebus, but, woman-like,
at first sight of him turns and flies.

Dawn is the most beautiful of all the atmospheric changes, but the
vision is a rarity to the majority of us.

Warrington was up and away on his hunter before Phoebus sent his
warning flashing over the hills. He took the now familiar road, and
urged his animal vigorously. Fine! Not a bit of dust rose from the
road, dew-wet and brown. The rime of the slight frost shone from the
fences and grasses and stacked corn, like old age that strikes in a
single night. Here and there a farmer could be seen pottering about
the yards, or there was a pale curl of smoke rising from the chimney.
The horse, loving these chill, exhilarating October mornings, went
drumming along the road. Occasionally Warrington would rise in the
stirrups and gaze forward over this elevation or that, and sometimes
behind him. No. For three mornings he had ridden out this old familiar
way, but alone. The hunger in his eyes remained unsatisfied.

For the first time in years he turned into a certain familiar fork in
the road, and all his youth came back to him as vividly as though it
had been but yesterday. Half a mile up this fork was the rambling old
farm-house. It was unchanged. The clapboards were still stained with
rust, the barns were still a dingy red, the stone and rail fences
needed the same repairs. Nothing had changed there but the masters.
And under that roof he had made his first feeble protest against life;
he had dreamed those valiant dreams of youth that never come true, no
matter how successful one may become in after life. Every waking means
an illusion gone, another twig pruned from the tree of ardent fancy;
and when one is old there is neither shade nor s