was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright. Mercy walked
lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed
brighter than all the rest. In a very short time, her hands were too full;
and in despair, like an over-laden child, she began to scatter them along
the way. She was so absorbed in her delight in the leaves that she hardly
looked at the houses on either hand, except to note with an unconscious
satisfaction that they were growing fewer and farther apart, and that
every thing looked more like country and less like town than it had done
in the neighborhood of the hotel.

Presently she came to a stretch of stone wall, partly broken down, in
front of an old orchard whose trees were gnarled and moss-grown.
Blackberry-vines had flung themselves over this wall, in and out among the
stones. The leaves of these vines were almost as brilliant as the leaves
of the maple-trees. They were of all shades of red, up to the deepest
claret; they were of light green, shading into yellow, and curiously
mottled with tiny points of red; all these shades and colors sometimes
being seen upon one long runner. The effect of these wreaths and tangles
of color upon the old, gray stones was so fine that Mercy stood still and
involuntarily exclaimed aloud. Then she picked a few of the most
beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them
with the maple-leaves she had already gathered. She made a most
picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint
little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and
leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them,
her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them. She
looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and
coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange
fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them,
unaware that she was on a highway.