Husks

The cover image was restored by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
CHAPTER I.
It was a decided uncompromising rainy day. There were no showers, coquetted with by veering winds or dubious mists, that at times grew brighter, as if the sun were burning away their lining; but a uniform expanse of iron-gray clouds—kept in close, grim column by a steady, although not violent east wind—sent straight lines of heavy rain upon the earth. The naked trees, that, during the earlier hours of the deluge had seemed to shiver for the immature leaf-buds, so unfit to endure the rough handling of the storm, now held out still, patient arms, the rising sap curdled within their hearts. The gutters were brimming streams, and the sidewalks were glazed with thin sheets of water.
The block of buildings before which our story pauses, was, as a glance would have showed the initiated in the grades of Gotham life, highly respectable, even in the rain. On a clear day when the half-folded blinds revealed the lace, silken and damask draperies within, when young misses and masters—galvanized show-blocks of purple and fine linen, that would have passed muster behind the plate-glass of Genin or Madame Demorest—tripped after hoops or promenaded the smooth pavement; when pretty, jaunty one-horse carriages, and more pretentious equipages, each with a pair of prancing steeds, and two outside passengers in broadcloth and tinsel hatbands, received and discharged their loads before the brown-stone fronts—had the afore-mentioned spectator chanced to perambulate this not spacious street, he would have conceded to it some degree of the fashion claimed for it by its inhabitants. There were larger houses and wider pavements to be had for the same price a few blocks further on, in more than one direction, but these were unanimously voted less eligible and deficient in style, in spite of the fact that as good and better materials were employed in their construction, and they were in all respects equal in external show and inside finish to those in this model quarter. But our block has a certain air—well—I don't know what; but it is just the thing, you know, and so convenient! So near the avenue! would be the concluding argument.