noon
He took infinite trouble with his dress that day , showing an amount of anxiety on the matter which for him was quite abnormal . At last , when fully equipped , he set out with his sister to make the call proposed . Charlotte was rather unhappy at sight of her brother 's earnest attempt to make an impression on Paula ; but she could say nothing against it , and they proceeded on their way . It was the darkest of November weather , when the days are so short that morning seems to join with evening without the intervention of noon . The sky was lined with low cloud , within whose dense substance tempests were slowly fermenting for the coming days . Even now a windy turbulence troubled the half-naked boughs , and a lonely leaf would occasionally spin downwards to rejoin on the grass the scathed multitude of its comrades which had preceded it in its fall . The river by the pavilion , in the summer so clear and purling , now slid onwards brown and thick and silent , and enlarged to double size .