The wind was cold, and the sound of it in the evergreens was like a far-off halloo of winter.

The house had a shadowy effect in waning moonlight, the walls were mostly gray, being only streaked high on the sheltered sides with old white paint.
Since Paulina Maria could not afford to have a coat of new paint on her house, she had a bitter ambition, from motives of tidiness and pride, to at least remove all traces of the old.

She felt that the chief sting of present deprivation lay in the evidence of its contrast with former plenty.

She hated the image in her memory of her cottage glistening with the white gloss of paint, and would have weakened it if she could.

Paulina Maria accordingly, standing on a kitchen-chair, had scrubbed with soap and sand the old paint-streaks as high as her long arms would reach, and had, at times, when his rheumatism would permit, set her tall husband to the task.