After he was gone, there came a November of the most dreary and characteristic kind.

There was incessant rain, and closing-in mists, without a gleam of sunshine to light up the drops of water, and make the wet stems and branches of the trees glisten.

Every color seemed dimmed and darkened; and the crisp autumnal glory of leaves fell soddened to the ground.

The latest flowers rotted away without ever coming to their bloom; and it looked as if the heavy monotonous sky had drawn closer and closer, and shut in the little moorland cottage as with a shroud.

In doors, things were no more cheerful.