Last night was quite cold, and the ground is white with frost. Thus gradually, but steadily, winter approaches . . .

  As I stand on the hill at 9 A.M., it looks like snow; the sky is overcast; smokes go up thickly from the village, answering to the frost in the chinks; and there is a remarkable stillness, as if it were earlier, the effect of the colder weather merely, as it were stiffening things . . .