November and December

November - with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes - days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well and his chimney drew.
"Warm fire - books - comfort - safety from storm - our cats on the rug." Said Barney,"would you be any happier now if you had a million dollars?"

December. Early snows and Orion. The pale fires of the Milky Way. It was really winter now - wonderful, cold, starry winter. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings. Great silences, austere and searching. Ice-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cozy living room with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats seemed cozier than ever.

~ L. M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle