Secure from the soft effacing snow,
Though all the rest of the Summer go._




CHAPTER V

THE GREEN FRIEND


Though we had received such unmistakable notice to quit, we still
lingered on in our solitude, after the manner of defiant tenants whom
nothing short of corporal ejection can dislodge. The North wind began to
roar in the tree-tops and shake the doors and windows of the shack, like
an angry landlord, but we paid no heed to him. Yet, all the time, both of
us, in our several ways, were saying our farewells, and packing up our
memories for departure. There was an old elm-tree which Colin had taken
for his Summer god, and which he was never tired of painting. He must
make the one perfect study of that before we pulled up stakes. So, each
day, after our morning adoration of the sun, we would separate about our
different ways and business.

The woods were already beginning to wear a wistful, dejected look. There
was a feeling of departure everywhere, a sense that the year's
excitements were over. The procession had gone by, and there was an
empty, purposeless air of waiting-about upon things, a sort of despairing
longing for something else to happen--and a sure sense that nothing more
could happen till next year. Every event in the floral calendar had taken
place with immemorial punctuality and tragic rapidity. All the