courage, but
lovelier far when they sparkle on the grass and shrubs under the
sudden flare of the rising sun. I fancy that with clearer light
all our gorgons and chimeras dire will become but sparkling
fairies, for these certainly do. Twig and leaf and grass spear
bend with the clusters of them. I see the fluff of their ermine
garments, their tossing white plumes, and get the glint of their
jewels, breaking up the white light into multiple rainbows that
flash all the pasture world with a dainty glamour of romance. Just
as the touch of winter, slipping down from the far north tinder
cover of darkness, first raises these spectres, then lays them, so
the sun makes their cheery, frostwork beauty a marvel of delight
for a brief time, then sends it back to the earth whence it sprang
and wipes away all tears from the eyes of the shrubs and grasses
that weep at losing such delicate beauty.

In those crisp morning hours of early sunlight all the ghosts are
laid. The winter chill which made them has frozen them all out of
the air. The twigs and leaves that gave them refuge have wept and
kissed them good-bye at the shout of the oncoming sun and no
suggestion from the world beyond meets the eye. The ghost chill is
frozen out of the sky with the ghosts; the wine of the morning is
so poured through the dry air that you must drink it to the lees
whether you will or not. Such mornings as you have had in April
you may get in November, nor hardly can you tell without the
assistance of the almanac which season it is. The bare twigs have
the flush of expectancy on them, the blushing hope of new buds, as
soon as the leaves of the year are off them. It may not be so
bright and winning, but you will not note the difference, for it
is there, painted during the ripening of this year's leaves. If it
were not that some of these still cling the illusion might be
complete.

There too, to be sure, are the brown stems of the pasture
goldenrod standing stiffly as if to state with grim definiteness
that all rainbow hopes are folly and there will be no more
blossoming for them. Their leaves are dun and sere where they have
not already fallen and their tops that in early September were
such soft cumulus clouds of golden yellow are but scrawny clots of
brown, draggled by the tears in which the sudden sun has drowned
the pasture. Yet these least of all should be pessimistic in
November, for as the sun dries their tears another summer comes
back to the