ng to her, kissed her
again, rapturously upon the cheek, turned and whirled toward the door
where she paused for a wave of the hand before plunging forth on her
errand.

The sound of the door closing behind her sobered her for a moment.
Here she was, gone again. Would she never be content to settle down?
But the wine of the autumnal weather came mounting to her head and as
she opened the front gate and struck out up the street she raised her
face, drinking it in.

The rows of maples had been touched by the frost and were flaming
scarlet and crimson. Over beyond, across the street, between the
houses where a pasture land stretched down to the creek, the beeches
were golden and rustling and shimmering in the mellow sunlight. There
was a delicious tang in the air one moment and a soft mellow touch of
indolent fruition the next. An automobile went scuttling across Main
Street at the intersection, seeking its way westward, leaving a cloud
of dust that hung lazily golden ere it settled. Even the dust was
fragrant. The old tavern was quite deserted; the same green shutter
hung by one hinge, and as she passed the town hall or meeting house
she could hear the click of a typewriter through an open window, an
incongruous touch of modernity in an otherwise immaculate antique
setting. The sun was warm and came filtering through the shade to
splotch the uneven brick pavement, bringing out its homely roughness
in minute detail. She felt as if she recognized each upturned brick,
and the worn patch of yellow earth where a grass plot was meant to be,
up to the edge of the gnarled root of the oak stump that had been
struck by lightning, was just as it had always been. She and Joe
Hooper had played marbles there until he had grown too big to be
playing marbles with girls. Queer little ecstatic sensations they
were.

She crossed the square. A solitary man was walking on the other side
of the street, away from her. He was carrying three long poles over
his shoulder and he walked stiffly and with a slight limp. He wore a
suit of dusty blue "unionalls" and a battered felt hat. Curious that
she should notice such things. A "Ford" backed away from the curbing,
wheeled and went rattling around the corner down the road toward
Guests. And then the street and the square and the whole town were
quiet again, as deserted as a street or a town on canvas.

She walked swiftly, but not too swiftly to catch up every sign of
home. Her mind was aflood w