A thick curtain of mist filled all the atmosphere, and made of daylight only a diluted darkness, in which it was hard to distinguish the skeletons of the trees which winter had stripped.

The mountains had disappeared; there was no sky; a veil of chilling moisture and depressing gloom was over every thing.

But neither Charlotte nor her mother was at that hour conscious of such inoffensive disagreeables.
They were trembling with anger and sorrow.

In a moment such a great event had happened, one utterly unconceived of, and unprepared for.

Half an hour previous, the unhappy mother had dreaded the breaking away from her old life, and had declined to discuss with Charlotte any plan tending to such a consummation.