Excerpt from Muriel Bertram: A Tale It was a gray sort of day, but the gray, Qua ker-like in softness, had a beauty of its own. Blue mists gathered in hollows, or circled clumps of trees, and a silver brook wound through the broad pasture-lands. Outlines of hills stood in purple clearness against a yellow - white horizon, which caught a pinkish hue towards the west. Slight glimmers of green near at hand gave promise of spring. Muriel, with her head thrown backward, and her hand on the ivy-clad wall, took in the picture dreamily. There was something nu-english and out of the common about her; and about the curve of her mouth, and the fall of her eyelids, was a touch of repression and sadness. Knowing she ought to hasten ou, she yet de layed. The extreme quiet of all around infected her with a curious disinclination to move. Few people passed along this upper road at any time, and in winter it was especially lonely. Muriel had met none, and did not expect to meet any. She was in a mood for solitude, and had become so much wrapped up in her own thoughts as to be quite unaware of a break in her solitude. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.