Read "World's End" by Richard Jefferies online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
How suddenly the leaves go in the autumn! They linger on the trees till we almost cheat ourselves into the belief that we shall escape the inevitable winter; that for once the inexorable march of events will be stayed, till some morning we wake up and look forth, and lo! a wind has arisen, and the leaves are gone.
Absorbed in the one miserable topic -- the one thought of Waldron's terrible fate -- Violet and Aymer spent several weeks almost unconsciously. When at last they, as it were, woke up and looked forth, the actual tangible leaves upon the trees had disappeared, and, like them, the green leaves of their lives had been shaken down and had perished.