Extract: CHAPTER I. Reappearance of an unexpected customer; together with what passed at a certain interview. DAY had pretty well broken as Colin trudged back homewards alone. It was one of those dull, leaden, misty, and chilly mornings, which in a town newly stirring from sleep seems to put the stamp and seal of melancholy upon everything external. The buildings at hand looked black,—those at a distance fused into mere shadows by the density of the windless atmosphere,—while the unextinguished lamps grew red-eyed and dim in the white light that had risen over them. Early labourers were trudging to their work; an occasional milkmaid, who looked precisely as though she had never seen a cow in the whole course of her life, banged her pail-handles, and whooped at area-gates; while bakers, who had been up nearly all night manufacturing hot rolls for that interesting portion of the community now snug in bed, slipped down the shutters of their houses leisurely, and stared lack-a-daisically upon the portents of the weather. Altogether, it was a description of scenery by no means calculated to inspire heavy hearts with unusual joy, or to raise the spirits of any one situated as was poor Colin.
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