BY THE MILL-RACE A warm, though hazy, sun followed the sharp night, and only the blackened and damaged plants in the yard bore witness to the frost, which had melted to the semblance of rain on the grass.

On the dappled boughs of the sycamore by the mill-race several bronze leaves hung limp and motionless, as if they were attached by silken threads to the stems, and the coating of moss on the revolving wheel shone like green enamel on a groundwork of ebony.

The white mist, which had wrapped the landscape at dawn, still lay in the hollows of the pasture, from which it floated up as the day advanced to dissolve in shining moisture upon the hillside.

There was a keen autumn tang in the air--a mingling of rotting leaves, of crushed winesaps, of drying sassafras.

As Abel passed from the house to the mill, his gaze rested on a golden hickory tree near the road, where a grey squirrel sported merrily under the branches.
Like most of his neighbours, he had drawn his weather predictions from the habits of the wild creatures, and had decided that it would be an open winter because the squirrels had left the larger part of the nuts ungarnered.
At the door of the mill, as he turned the big rusty key in the lock, he told himself doggedly that since he was not to have Molly, the only sensible thing was to surrender the thought of her.