Betty Leicester's Christmas by Sarah Orne Jewett

Betty Leicester, in a new winter gown which had just been sent home from Liberty's, with all desirable qualities of color, and a fine expanse of smocking at the yoke, and some sprigs of embroidery for ornament in proper places, was yet an unhappy Betty. In spite of being not only fine, but snug and warm as one always feels when cold weather first comes and one gets into a winter dress, everything seemed disappointing.

The weather was shivery and dark, the street into which she was looking was narrow and gloomy, and there was a moment when Betty thought wistfully of Tideshead as if there were no December there, and only the high, clear September sky that she had left. Somehow, all out-of-door life appeared to have come to an end, and she felt as if she were shut into a dark and wintry prison. Not long before this she had come from Whitby, the charming red-roofed Yorkshire fishing-town that forever climbs the hill to its gray abbey. There were flocks of young people at Whitby that autumn, and Betty had lived out of doors in pleasant company to her heart's content, and tramped about the moors and along the cliffs with gay parties, and played golf and cricket, and helped to plan some great excitement or lively excursion for almost every day. There is a funny, dancing-step sort of walk, set to the tune of "Humpty-Dumpty," which seems to belong with the Whitby walking-sticks which everybody carries; you lock arms in lines across the road, and keep step to the gay chant of the dismal nursery lines, and the faster you go, especially when you are tired, the more it seems to rest you (or that's what some people think) in the long walks home. Whitby was almost as good as Tideshead, to which lovely town Betty now compared every other, even London itself.