The autumn wind blew over England. It twitched¹ the leaves off the trees, and down they fluttered, spotted² red and yellow, or sent them floating, flaunting³ in wide curves before they settled. In towns coming in gusts⁵ round the corners, the wind blew here a hat off; there lifted a veil high above a woman’s head. Money was in brisk circulation. The streets were crowded. Upon the sloping desks of the offices near St. Paul’s, clerks paused with their pens on the ruled page. It was difficult to work after the holidays. Margate, Eastbourne and Brighton had bronzed them and tanned them. The sparrows and starlings, making their discordant⁶ chatter⁷ round the eaves of St. Martin’s, whitened the heads of the sleek⁸ statues holding rods or rolls of paper in Parliament Square. Blowing behind the boat train, the wind ruffled⁹ the channel, tossed the grapes in Provence, and made the lazy fisher boy, who was lying on his back in his boat in the Mediterranean¹⁰, roll over and snatch a rope.

But in England, in the North, it was cold. Kitty, Lady Lasswade, sitting on the terrace beside her husband and his spaniel, drew the cloak round her shoulders. She was looking at the hill top, where the snuffer-shaped monument raised by the old Earl made a mark for ships at sea. There was mist on the woods. Near at hand the stone ladies on the terrace had scarlet¹¹ flowers in their urns¹². Thin blue smoke drifted across the flaming dahlias in the long beds that went down to the river. “Burning weeds,” she said aloud. Then there was a tap on the window, and her little boy in a pink frock stumbled out, holding his spotted horse.

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