Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/193

 tinge the topmost twigs with gold, and autumn, like a beautiful woman, then indeed at her loveliest, who is just upon the wane, dresses in her deepest colours, and her richest garments, go roaming about in Kensington Gardens, and say whether you might not fancy yourself a hundred miles from any such evidences of civilization pillar-post or a cab-stand.

It was but the other day, I sauntered through the grove that stands nearest the Uxbridge Eoad, and while an afternoon mist limited my range of vision and deadened the sounds of traffic on my ears, I could hardly persuade myself that in less than five minutes I might if I liked make the thirteenth in an omnibus.

Alone? you ask—of course I was. Yet, stay, not quite alone, for with me walked the shadow, that, when we have learned to prefer solitude to society, accompanies us in