Girls of the Forest by L.T. Meade

Miss Tredgold was dreadfully puzzled to know what to make of the girls. The time was autumn now; all pretense of summer had disappeared. Autumn had arrived and was very windy and wet, and the girls could no longer walk in twos and twos on the pretty lawn. They had to keep to the walks, and even these walks were drenched, as day after day deluges of rain fell from the heavens. The Forest, too, was sodden with the fallen leaves, and even the ponies slipped as they cantered down the glades. Altogether it was a most chilling, disappointing autumn, winter setting in, so to speak, all at once. Verena said she never remembered such an early season of wintry winds and sobbing skies. The flowers disappeared, several of the Forest trees were rooted up in consequence of the terrible gales, and Miss Tredgold said it was scarcely safe for the children to walk there.

"The best cure for weather of this sort," she said to herself, "is to give the young people plenty to do indoors."