full-blooded flowers of Summer had long since come and gone, with their
magic faces and their souls of perfume. Gone were the banners of blossom
from the great trees. The locust and the chestnut, those spendthrifts of
the woods, that went the pace so gorgeously in June, are now sober-coated
enough, and growing even threadbare. All the hum and the honey and
breathless bosom-beat of things is over. The birds sing no more, but only
chatter about time-tables. The bee keeps to his hive, and the bewildered
butterfly, in tattered ball-dress, wonders what has become of his flowery
partners. The great cricket factory has shut down. Not a wheel is heard
whirring. The squirrel has lost his playful air, and has an anxious
manner, as though there were no time to waste before stocking his
granary. Everywhere berries have taken the place of buds, and bearded
grasses the place of flowers. Even the goldenrod has fallen to rust, and
the stars of the aster are already tarnished. Only along the edges of the
wood the dry little paper immortelles spread long shrouds and wreaths in
the shade.

Suddenly you feel lonely in the woods, which had seemed so companionable
all Summer. What is it--_Who_ is it--that has gone? Though quite alone,
there was some one with you all Summer, an invisible being filling the
woods with his presence, and always at your side, or somewhere near by.
But to-day, through all the green halls and chambers of the wood, you
seek him in vain. You call, but there is no answer. You wait, but he does
not come. He has gone. The wood is an empty palace. The prince went away
secretly in the night. The wood is a deserted temple. The god has betaken
himself to some secret abode. Everywhere you come upon chill, abandoned
altars, littered debris of Summer sacrifices. Maybe he is dead, and
perchance, deeper in the wood, you may come upon his marble form in a
winding-sheet of drifting leaves.