Starting in the morning, she trudged out of the city towards the
ferry of Jean Le Nocher, who carefully crossed himself and his boat
too as he took Mere Malheur on board. He wafted her over in a
hurry, as something to be got rid of as quickly as possible.
Mere Malheur tramped on, like a heavy gnome, through the fallen and
flying leaves of the woods of Beaumanoir, caring nothing for the
golden, hazy sky, the soft, balmy air, or the varicolored leaves--
scarlet, yellow, and brown, of every shade and tinge--that hung upon
the autumnal trees.
A frosty night or two had ushered in the summer of St. Martin, as it
was called by the habitans,--the Indian summer,--that brief time of
glory and enchantment which visits us like a gaudy herald to
announce the approach of the Winter King. It is Nature's last
rejoicing in the sunshine and the open air, like the splendor and
gaiety of a maiden devoted to the cloister, who for a few weeks is
allowed to flutter like a bird of paradise amid the pleasures and
gaieties of the world, and then comes the end.
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