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 trees in that sheltered valley, those oaks and elms and ashes would be “turning” now! It was to them that her thoughts and steps alike were hurrying her this morning. The still, shining afternoon of the previous day had determined her upon the expedition, and she had prepared for it by replacing the pink roses in her summer bonnet with a knot of orange and flame nasturtiums that she had luckily had by her.

“All the same old grey an’ brown an’ drab, an’ green as ain’t green, an’ blue as ain’t blue—that’s all you are,” she complained to the waterside as she went along it. “Somethink ’ot-coloured an’ tasty is what I want. You’re like sister-law Marthy’s mutton ’ash, what never ’ad no pepper, nor no honion. Come autumn skies, my pore sight do seem to water for things red, an’ yaller, an’ ripe.”

She boarded the car, and left it, quite successfully. It was still an achievement, for her native city had never shown her an electric car. Soon she found herself walking straight inland; on one side of her the water, become a good, tame, understandable river now, nicely held in between green banks not too far apart; and, on the other, high hills, that kept the valley safe from the sea winds. Round a corner of the hills the road went; she followed, and was at once in—ah! what a different world! A poplar-tree hung over the fence, and greeted her with the peculiar, nutty fragrance of fallen leaves. That was as it were the turning of the key in Exile’s unclimbable gate to our homesick friend. “Ah-h-h! I smell autumn!” she said, with a sigh of intense relief.