But when the summer was ended, and after the damp warm fogs of November
were over, and a keen, black frost set in sharply before Christmas--a
frost which had none of the beauty of white lime and clear blue skies,
but which hung over the city like a pall, and penetrated to every
fireside with an icy breath; when only the strong and the healthy, who
were well clothed and well fed, could meet it bravely, while the
delicate, and sickly, and poverty-stricken, shrank before it, and were
chilled through and through, then Dolly drooped and failed altogether.
Even old Oliver's dull ears began to hear a little cough, which seemed to
echo from some grave not very far away; and when he drew his little love
between his knees, and put on his spectacles to gaze into her face, the
dearest face in all the world to him, even his eyes saw something of its
wanness, and the hollow lines which had come upon it since the summer had
passed away. The old man felt troubled about her, yet he scarcely knew
what to do. He bought sweetmeats to soothe her cough, and thought
sometimes that he must ask somebody or other about a doctor for her; but
his treacherous memory always let the thought slip out of his mind.
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