The brief cloudy November
afternoon was fast merging into early twilight. The trees, now
gaunt and bare, creaked and groaned in the passing gale, clashing
their icy branches together with sounds sadly unlike the
slumberous rustle of their foliage in June. And that same foliage
was now flying before the wind, swept hither and thither, like
exiles driven by disaster from the moorings of home, at times
finding a brief abiding-place, and then carried forward to parts
unknown by circumstances beyond control. The street leading into
the village was almost deserted; and the few who came and went
hastened on with fluttering garments, head bent down, and a
shivering sense of discomfort. The fields were bare and brown; and
the landscape on the uplands rising in the distance would have
been utterly sombre had not green fields of grain, like childlike
faith in wintry age, relieved the gloomy outlook and prophesied of
the sunshine and golden harvest of a new year and life.
But bleak November found no admittance in Mrs. Alford's cosey
parlor.
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