midday
He sighed wearily , got up , and walked back to his empty home . Quite empty -- that was the impression it made upon his mind both to-night and all next day . He looked at it in the bright morning sunshine , across the meadows , while the scythes laid down the first long swathes of fragrant grass , and it seemed merely the shell of a house . He looked at it in the midday glare , as he came up the field to his dinner , and it seemed cold and black and cheerless . He looked at it in the softer , kinder light of late afternoon , and it seemed to him tragically sad -- a monument of woe rather than a house , a fantastic tomb built in the shape of a house in order to symbolize the homely joy that had perished on this spot . Yet smoke was rising from its chimneys , sound issuing from its windows . All day long it had been full of active cheerful life .