It was snowing heavily. For days the great snowflakes had been falling over the small town out of an infinite sky-land, out of infinite sky-plains of infinite snow. And, after all the gloom of the dark days that had been, the days under the grey skies of storm and rain, it was now snowing whiter and whiter out of a denser greyness of sky-plains and sky-land, flakes falling upon flakes in a soft white shroud of oblivion that enveloped houses and people. And, in that ever-falling snow from the great, grey infinity above the small town and the small people, the town seemed still smaller, with the outline of its houses now scarcely defined against the all-effacing oblivion, which fell and fell without ceasing, and the people also seemed still smaller, as they moved about the town or looked through the windows of their small houses at the white flakes descending from the grey infinity overhead.
For old Mrs. van Lowe the white days dragged on monotonously from Sunday to Sunday: only the Sunday gave her a glimpse of light; but the other days had become so white and blank, so white and blank in their twilight emptiness. Even though the children called to see her regularly, she no longer
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