Maria Chapdelaine

a disaster. According to the Chapdelaines, never had the country been visited with such

long the famished cows stood lowing with their heads over the fences. They had to be watched continually, for even the meager standing crop

wind shifted and in the morning came the rain. It fell off and on for a week,

ought; nothing save the hay was in barn; the other crops could draw nutriment from the soil only while the too brief su

changeless setting of spruces and firs, and ever the same sunsets of gray and opal, opal and gold, and skies of misty blue above the same dark woodland. Bu

ays and frosty mornings; but every time the wind came afresh from the north-west it was a little colder, a little more remindful of the icy winter blasts. Everywhere is autumn a melancholy season, charged with regrets for that which is

r grain to steal a little nourishment from the earth's failing veins and the spiritless sun. At length, harvest they must, for October approached. About the

s, the unprecedented September frosts, which betrayed their hopes. Against the miserly shortness of the summer and the harshness of a climate that shows no mercy they did not rebel, were even without a touch of bitterness; but they did not give up contrasting th