It don't seem to me 's I'll ever want to git out o' this chair." At last, very unwillingly, late in the afternoon, Mercy went, leaving her mother alone in the hotel.
Without asking a question of anybody, she turned resolutely to the north.
"Even if our house is not on this street," she said to herself, "I am going to see those lovely woods;" and she walked swiftly up the hill, with her eyes fixed on the glowing dome of scarlet and yellow leaves which crowned it.

The trees were in their full autumnal splendor: maples, crimson, scarlet, and yellow; chestnuts, pale green and yellow; beeches, shining golden brown; and sumacs in fiery spikes, brighter than all the rest.

There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors.

Mercy had often read of the glories of autumn in New England's thickly wooded regions; but she had never dreamed that it could be so beautiful as this.
Rows of young maples lined the street which led up to this wooded hill.
Each tree seemed a full sheaf of glittering color; and yet the path below was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright.

Mercy walked lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed brighter than all the rest.