Letty ran out behind
the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced,
into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a
breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the
house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an
unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound.
Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray,
and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes
by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her
wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as
he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation,
from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the
child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then
she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down,
that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of
blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist.
But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the
barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal.
"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me.
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