Explore "Proper Pride, Volume III" by B. M. Croker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It is the end of the first week in January -- bleak, black January! Outside Looton the snow is falling lightly but persistently; already it is a foot deep in the park. It is a bitterly cold, dreary, dark evening. Not a single living creature is abroad that can possibly find shelter. What a night for the homeless -- what a night for the miserable starving birds!
Inside Looton the prospect is much more cheerful. A huge log fire is roaring up the chimney of the great hall, lighting up the frames of dingy-looking portraits, reflecting itself in more than one dinted steel cuirass and battered casque, and generally illuminating the arms and armour of many a dead and gone Fairfax.