Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/253

 instead of just ended. But with the presage which sends the bird southward long before the cold is felt, and teaches the caterpillar to roll its cocoon and the squirrel to make ready its winter's nest and store of nuts, the gay summer crowd began to melt away. Every day brought a lessened list of arrivals at the hotels; and already there was that sense of a season over and done with and about to be laid up and shelved for the winter, which all watering-places know so well, and which is as a nipping frost to the hopes of landlords and letters of lodgings. Just why "Finis" should be written so early on the fair page of the Newport season, it is hard to explain; for, charming as is the summer, September and October are more charming still, and nowhere does the later autumn exhibit a more indulgent mood, holding back the winter till the last possible moment, and sometimes coaxing summer to aid and abet with supplies of greenery and flowers, till the New Year comes to put an end to the merry game.