B. BROWNING.
The shade of twilight was but just fleeting, a faint glow waxed over the
eastern hills, and the great orchard of pear-trees that pressed up to
one end of Melcombe House showed white as an army of shrouded ghosts in
the dim solemnities of dawn. The house was closely shut up, and no one
met Valentine, as, tired after a night journey, he dismissed a hired fly
at the inn, and came up slowly to those grand old silent trees.
Without sunshine, white in nature is always most solemn. Here stillness
was added; not a bird was yet awake, not a leaf stirred. A faint bluish
haze appeared to confuse the outlines of the trees, but as he lingered
looking at them and at the house which he had now fully decided to take
for his home, Mr. Melcombe saw this haze dissolve itself and retreat;
there was light enough to make the paleness whiter, and to show the
distinct brown trunk of each pear-tree, with the cushions of green moss
at its roots. Formless whiteness and visible dusk had divided themselves
into light and shade, then came a shaft of sunshine, the boughs laden
with dewy blossom sparkled like snow, and in one instant the oppression
of their solemnity was over, and they appeared to smile upon his
approach to his home.
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