But, first, here is my birthday-kiss.
Don't you feel it warm upon your lips?"
"O papa!" shouted Sunshine, as the fancy whirled through her busy
little brain, "it seems just as if the sun were kissing me for my
birthday."
"If the sun does, the father must; and it ought to be twice over,
because last year he lost the chance. Eight! Bless me! where shall I
put them all? One on the forehead, two on the eyes, one on the tip
of that ridiculous little nose, two on the rose-red cheeks, one in
that little hollow under the chin, and the last and best square on
the lips. Now, then, my Sunshine, run to mamma, who is waiting for
you."
The sun meantime, after a brief period of meditation, took his
resolve; and, sending back the brisk October day that had prepared
to descend upon earth, he summoned, instead, the first day of the
Indian Summer, and bade her go and help to celebrate the bridal of
one of his favorite daughters, as she knew so well how to do.
So, summoning a south-west wind, still bearing in his garments the
odors of the tropic bowers where he had slept, the fair day
descended softly in his arms to earth, and, seating herself upon the
hills, wove a drapery of golden mist, bright as love, and tender as
maidenhood. Then, wrapped in this bridal veil, she floated, still in
the arms of the gentle wind, through the forests, touching their
leaves with purer gold and richer crimson; over the harvest-fields,
whose shocks of lingering corn rustled responsive as her trailing
garments swept past; over wide, brown pastures, where the cattle
nibbled luxuriously at the sweet after-math; over lakes and rivers,
where the waters slept content, forgetting, for the moment, their
restless seaward march; over sheltered gardens, where hollyhock and
sunflower, petunia and pansy, dahlia and phlox, whispering together
of the summer vanished and the frosty nights at hand, gave out the
mysterious, melancholy perfume of an autumn day.
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