ng into the train for London.

Chapter the Twelfth

As the weeks rolled on the days began perceptibly to draw in, and the
leaves turned gradually from green to golden brown. It was the fall of
the year, when the wind acquires an edge, and blue sky disappears behind
purple clouds, and the world is reminded that ere very long all nature
will be wrapped in a shroud of grey and silver. Rain fell with greater
frequency, the uplands were often veiled in a damp mist, the hours of
basking in noontide suns by the old stone fountain were gone, and Austin
was fain to relinquish, one by one, those summer fantasies that for so
many happy months had made the gladness of his life. There is always
something sad about the autumn. It is associated, undeniably, with
golden harvests and purple vintages, the crimson and yellow magnificence
of foliage, and a few gorgeous blooms; but these, after all, are no more
than indications that the glory of the year has reached its zenith,
that its labours have attained fruition, and that the death of winter
must be passed through before the resurrection-time of spring.

"Ihr Matten lebt wohl,
Ihr sonnigen Waiden,
Der Senne muss scheiden,
Die Sommer ist bin."

And yet the summer did not carry everything away with it. As the year
ripened and decayed, other fantasies arose to take the place of those
he was losing--or rather, he grew more and more under the obsession of
ideas not wholly of this world, ideas and phases of consciousness
that, as we have seen, had for some time past been gradually gaining
an entrance into his soul. As the beauties of the material world
faded, the wonders of a higher world superseded them. He still lived
much in the open air, drinking in all the influences of the scenery in
earth and sky, and marvelling at the loveliness of the year's
decadence; but, as though in subtle sympathy with nature's phases, it
seemed to him as though his own body had less vitality, and that,
while his mind was as keen and vigorous as ever, he felt less and less
inclined to explore his beloved, fields and woods. Aunt Charlotte
looked first critically and then anxiously at his face, which
appeared to her paler and thinner than before. His stump began to
trouble him again, and once or twice he confessed, in a reluctant sort
of way, that his back did not feel quite comfortable. Of course he
thought it was very silly of his back, and was annoyed that it did not
behav