street, gay lifeguards of autumn; through dark green cedars the crimson
creeper threaded its sprays of blood-red; birches, gilded to their tops,
swayed to every wind, and drooped their graceful boughs earthward to
shower the mossy sward with glittering leaves; heavy oaks turned
purple-crimson through their wide-spread boughs; and the stately
chestnuts, with foliage of tawny yellow, opened wide their stinging
husks to let the nuts fall for squirrel and blue-jay. Splendid sadness
clothed all the world, opal-hued mists wandered up and down the valleys
or lingered about the undefined horizon, and the leaf-scented south wind
sighed in the still noon with foreboding gentleness.

One day, Abner Dimock was gone, and Hitty stole down to the garden-door
with her little child, now just trying to walk, that he might have a
little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the
air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and
springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air,
the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature,
stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the
budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her
child might yet atone for the agony of the past;--a time might come when
she should sit in that door, white-haired and trembling with age, but as
peaceful as the autumn day, watching the sports of his children, while
his strong arm sustained her into the valley of shadow, and his tender
eyes lit the way.

As she sat dreaming, suddenly a figure intercepted the sunshine, and,
looking up, she saw Abner Dimock's father, the elder Abner, entering the
little wicket-gate of the garden. A strange, tottering old figure, his
nose and chin grimacing at each other, his bleared eyes telling
unmistakable truths of cider-brandy and New England rum, his scant locks