and the viewpoint of
those unidentified myriads to whom New York is a fetich; and as she
walked on beneath the trees soon to lay aside their valedictory robes,
she appreciated most fully those to whom Central Park is a fetich within
a fetich, a guarded flame within the inmost chamber of the shrine.

Partly the spell was that of Autumn, that grave, melodious season; and as
Helen went forward, her mind lingered on the "tragic splendor" at whose
"mute signal, leaf by golden leaf, crumbles the gorgeous year."

In the past she had never been inordinately fond of New York. In common
with most of her fellow Bostonians, she had found it too big, too noisy,
too garish, and too unfriendly. To her it was iron and stone and dust
and the tumult of a harsh and heartless unceasing struggle. But now,
under the alchemic hand of Autumn, she found herself thrilling to the
town as never before had she thought possible. Only two days had elapsed
since her departure from Boston, but it seemed to her now that she was a
participant in some slow-moving pageant, not a hostile critic in the
audience, but a minor actor in an unfamiliar yet strangely familiar play.
Even the hurrying throng of people who confronted her, when at length she
sought again the street on her way homeward, seemed less hostile and
alien, less inimical to her and her mood than ever before. As she went
southward on the street car--for her careful New Englandism forbade her
taking a taxicab in sunny weather--she found herself reflecting with a
smile that Boston in her recollection was an astonishing distance away.
She also detected with surprise a very slight irritation at the intense
preoccupation of the thronging thousands in their own concerns and their
utter carelessness of her and hers.

As a matter of fact she had no concerns of her own, or at least none
whose vitality would gain attention. And suddenly her friendly sense of
being a part of this flowing life dissolved sourly into mockery. She was
in it and not of it--again the hostile critic. And then it occurred to
her that perhaps momentarily she was a little lonely. And her utter
impotence in this huge careless city heightened this feeling. She could
make no headway against the current of this life. The remarkable
persistent vitality of the thing around her made her feel totally
unimportant and quite helpless. The feeling was far from pleasant, but
it was salutary, and stimulus for the first remedy at han