as shaking
off the few leaves that still hung on them. All day long these last,
golden leaves hovered and whirled in the air for a few seconds and then
fell, in an incessant, melancholy rain.

Jeanne walked on down to the wood. It gave her the sad impression of
being in the room of a dying man. The leafy walls which had separated
the pretty winding paths no longer existed, the branches of the shrubs
blew mournfully one against the other, the rustling of the fallen
leaves, that the wind was blowing about and piling into heaps, sounded
like a dying sigh, and the birds hopped from tree to tree with shivering
little chirps, vainly seeking a shelter from the cold. Shielded by the
elms which formed a sort of vanguard against the sea-wind, the linden
and the plane-tree were still covered with leaves, and the one was
clothed in a mantle of scarlet velvet, the other in a cloak of orange
silk. Jeanne walked slowly along the baroness's avenue, by the side of
Couillard's farm, beginning to realize what a dull, monotonous life lay
before her; then she sat down on the slope where Julien had first told
his love, too sad even to think and only feeling that she would like to
go to bed and sleep, so that she might escape from this melancholy day.
Looking up she saw a seagull blown along by a gust of wind, and she
suddenly thought of the eagle she had seen in Corsica in the somber
valley of Ota. As she sat there she could see again the island with its
sun-ripened oranges, its strong perfumes, its pink-topped mountains, its
azure bays, its ravines, with their rushing torrents, and it gave her a
sharp pain to think of that happy time that was past and gone; and the
damp, rugged country by which she was now surrounded, the mournful fall
of the leaves, the gray clouds hurrying before the wind, made her feel
so miserable that she went indoors, feeling that she should cry if she
stayed out any longer. She found her mother, who was accustomed to these
dull days, dozing over the fire. The baron and Julien had gone for a
walk, and the night was drawing on filling the vast drawing-room with
dark shadows which were sometimes dispersed by the fitful gleams of the
fire; out of doors the gray sky and muddy fields could just be seen in
the fading light.

The baron and Julien came in soon after Jeanne. As soon as he came into
the gloomy room the baron rang the bell, exclaiming:

"How miserable you look in here! Let us have some lights."

He sat down