After he was gone, there came a November of the most dreary¹ and characteristic kind. There was incessant² 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 glisten³. Every color seemed dimmed and darkened; and the crisp autumnal glory of leaves fell soddened⁴ to the ground. The latest flowers rotted away without ever coming to their bloom; and it looked as if the heavy monotonous⁵ sky had drawn⁶ closer and closer, and shut in the little moorland cottage as with a shroud⁷. In doors, things were no more cheerful. Maggie saw that her mother was depressed⁸, and she thought that Edward’s extravagance must be the occasion. Oftentimes she wondered how far she might speak on the subject; and once or twice she drew near it in conversation; but her mother winced⁹ away, and Maggie could not as yet see any decided¹⁰ good to be gained from encountering such pain. To herself it would have been a relief to have known the truth — the worst, as far as her mother knew it; but she was not in the habit of thinking of herself. She only tried, by long tender attention, to cheer and comfort her mother; and she and Nancy strove in every way to reduce the household expenditure¹¹, for there was little ready money to meet it. Maggie wrote regularly to Edward; but since the note inquiring about the agency, she had never heard from him. Whether her mother received letters she did not know; but at any rate she did not express anxiety, though her looks and manner betrayed that she was ill at ease. It was almost a relief to Maggie when some change was given to her thoughts by Nancy’s becoming ill. The damp gloomy weather brought on some kind of rheumatic attack, which obliged the old servant to keep her bed.

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