as able to shut the
door there even against the solicitations of nature and against the
weariness of it also. How quiet it was in the square in those late autumn
days, and yet not lifeless by any means! Indeed, it seemed all the more a
haven because the roar of the great city environed it, and one could
feel, without being disturbed by, the active pulsation of human life. And
then, if one has sentiment, is there anywhere that it is more ministered
to than in the city at the close of the year? The trees in the little
park grow red and yellow and brown, the leaves fall and swirl and drift
in windrows by the paths, the flower-beds flame forth in the last dying
splendor of their color; the children, chasing each other with hoop and
ball about the walks, are more subdued than in the spring-time; the old
men, seeking now the benches where the sunshine falls, sit in dreamy
reminiscence of the days that are gone; the wandering minstrel of Italy
turns the crank of his wailing machine, O! bella, bella, as in the
spring, but the notes seem to come from far off and to be full of memory
rather than of promise; and at early morning, or when the shadows
lengthen at evening, the south wind that stirs the trees has a salt
smell, and sends a premonitory shiver of change to the fading foliage.
But how bright are the squares and the streets, for all this note of
melancholy! Life is to begin again.

But the social season opened languidly. It takes some time to recover
from the invigoration of the summer gayety--to pick up again the threads
and weave them into that brilliant pattern, which scarcely shows all its
loveliness of combination and color before the weavers begin to work in
the subdued tints of Lent. How delightful it is to see this knitting and
unraveling of the social fabric year after year! and how untiring are the
senders of the shuttles, the dyers, the hatchelers, the spinners, the
ever-busy makers and destroyers of the intricate web we call society!
After one campaign, must there not be time given to organize for another?
Who has fallen out, who are the new recruits, who are engaged, who will
marry, who have separated, who has lost his money? Before we can safely
reorganize we must not only examine the hearts but the stock-list. No
matter how many brilliant alliances have been arranged, no matter how
many husbands and wives have drifted apart in the local whirlpools of the
summer's current, the season will be dull if Wall Stree