Leafless

Through the clear wintry sunshine the bells this morning rang from the gray church tower amid the leafless elms, and up the walk the villagers trooped in their best dresses and their best faces — the latter a little reddened by the sharp wind: mere redness in the middle aged; in the maids, wonderful bloom to the eyes of their lovers — and took their places decently in the ancient pews.

A mizzling rain darkened the atmosphere, and the leafless trees presented a scene of external desolation, that in some degree corresponded with the mental gloom of the travellers.

The poplars stood in two endless rows with their leafless branches pointing stiffly heavenwards.

The rain came down, thick and fast, and pattered noisily among the leafless bushes.

In winter the leafless trees look cold.

One afternoon, when all the party from the house were riding, Adeline sauntered under the leafless, hazel hedges, which separated the pleasure domain from the park.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

For many times with the laughing girls and boys / Played I along the road and over the hills / When the sun was low and the air was cool, / Stopping to club the walnut tree / Standing leafless against a flaming west.