the fence, could pierce the armor of proof with which he had
provided her?


If the spring had been late, the autumn was early.

One fine warm summer evening it suddenly began to rain. The next
day it was still raining; and it poured incessantly, growing ever
colder and colder, for eleven days and nights on end. At last it
cleared up; but the next night there were four degrees of frost.
[Note: Reaumur.]

On the bushes and trees the leaves hung glued together after the
long rain; and when the frost had dried them after its fashion,
they fell to the ground in multitudes at every little puff of wind.

The Pastor's tenant was one of the few that had got their corn in;
and now it had to be threshed while there was water for the
machine. The little brook in the valley rushed foaming along, as
brown as coffee, and all the men on the farm were taken up with
tending the machine and carting corn and straw up and down the
Parsonage hill.

The farm-yard was bestrewn with straw, and when the wind swirled in
between the houses it seized the oat-straws by the head, raised
them on end, and set them dancing along like yellow spectres. It
was the juvenile autumn wind trying its strength; not until well on
in the winter, when it has full-grown lungs, does it take to
playing with tiles and chimney-pots.