Still, she was an ideal pet, in many ways.

And, Lad's utter devotion to her was a full set of credentials, by itself.
Autumn froze into winter.

The trees turned into naked black ghosts; or, rather, into many-stringed harps whereon the northwest gales alternately shrieked and roared.

The fire-blue lake was a sheet of leaden ice, twenty inches thick.

The fields showed sere and grayly lifeless in the patches between sodden snow-swathes.