Before we left the leaves had fallen off all the trees except the oaks, which make in cold weather one of the dreariest sounds one ever hears:  a shivering rustle, which makes one pity the tree and imagine it shelterless and forlorn.  The sea had looked rough and cold for many days, and the old house itself had grown chilly,—­all the world seemed waiting for the snow to come.  There was nobody loitering on the wharves, and when we went down the street we walked fast, arm in arm, to keep warm.  The houses were shut up as close as possible, and the old sailors did not seem cheery any longer; they looked forlorn, and it was not a pleasant prospect to be so long weather-bound in port.  If they ventured out, they put on ancient great-coats, with huge flaps to the pockets and large horn buttons, and they looked contemptuously at the vane, which always pointed to the north or east.  It felt like winter, and the captains rolled more than ever as they walked, as if they were on deck in a heavy sea.  The rheumatism claimed many victims, and there was one day, it must be confessed, when a biting, icy fog was blown in-shore, that Kate and I were willing to admit that we could be as comfortable in town, and it was almost time for sealskin jackets.

In the front yards we saw the flower-beds black with frost, except a few brave pansies which had kept green and had bloomed under the tall china-aster stalks, and one day we picked some of these little flowers to put between the leaves of a book and take away with us.  I think we loved Deephaven all the more in those last days, with a bit of compassion in our tenderness for the dear old town which had so little to amuse it.  So long a winter was coming, but we thought with a sigh how pleasant it would be in the spring.

You would have smiled at the treasures we brought away with us.  We had become so fond of even our fishing-lines; and this very day you may see in Kate’s room two great bunches of Deephaven cat-o’-nine-tails.  They were much in our way on the journey home, but we clung affectionately to these last sheaves of our harvest.

The morning we came away our friends were all looking out from door or window to see us go by, and after we had passed the last house and there was no need to smile any longer, we were very dismal.  The sun was shining again bright and warm as if the Indian summer were beginning, and we wished that it had been a rainy day.

The thought of Deephaven will always bring to us our long quiet summer days, and reading aloud on the rocks by the sea, the fresh salt air, and the glory of the sunsets; the wail of the Sunday psalm-singing at church, the yellow lichen that grew over the trees, the houses, and the stone-walls; our boating and wanderings ashore; our importance as members of society, and how kind every one was to us both.  By and by the Deephaven warehouses will fall and be used for firewood by the fisher-people, and the wharves will be worn away by