Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/196

194

How much of change lies in a little space! How soon the spirits leave their youth behind! The early green forsakes the bough; the flowers, Nature's more fairy-like and fragile ones, Droop on the way-side, and the later leaves Have artifice and culture—so the heart: How soon its soft spring hours take darker hues! And hopes, that were like rainbows, melt in shade; While the fair future, ah! how fair it seemed! Grows dark and actual.

was a cold and rainy afternoon as Ethel Churchill sat at the window of their new abode, a house in one of the streets leading from the Strand to the river. It was the day after their arrival, and nothing could well be more gloomy than the view: the pavement was wet, and a yellow mist obscured every object, the passers glided by like phantoms, and the Thames, at