Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/111



needed the pretty light papering of the rooms to reconcile them to Milton. It needed more—more that could not be had. The thick yellow November fogs had come on; and the view of the plain in the valley, made by the sweeping bend of the river, was all shut out when Mrs. Hale arrived at her new home.

Margaret and Dixon had been at work for two days, unpacking and arranging, but everything inside the house still looked in disorder; and outside a thick fog crept up to the very windows, and was driven in to every open door in choking white wreaths of unwholesome mist.

"Oh, Margaret! are we to live here?" asked Mrs. Hale in blank dismay.

Margaret's heart echoed the dreariness of the tone in which this question was put. She could scarcely command herself enough to say, "Oh, the fogs in London are sometimes far worse!"

"But then you knew that London itself, and