of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie , under a gray sky .
The water shoneshinepacifically ; the sky , without a speck , was a benign immensity of unstained light ; the very mistmiston the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric , hung from the wooded rises inland , and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds .
It was early in the spring ; there had been a little frostfrostin the night , and a light mistmiststill hung over the woods and meadows .
A fine mistmist, the etherealized essence of the fogfog, hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room , all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table , and ruddy again in the firelight .
With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head , and his body still tingling with his quick walkwalkalong the streets and in and out of traffic and foot-passengers , this drawing-room seemed very remote and still ; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed , at some distance from each other , and had a bloom on them owing to the fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickenedthickenby blue grains of mistmist.