The Daltons, Volume I (of II‪)‬

A theatre by daylight, a great historical picture in the process of cleaning, a ballet dancer of a wet day hastening to rehearsal, the favorite for the Oaks dead lame in a straw yard, are scarcely more stripped of their legitimate illusions than is a fashionable watering place on the approach of winter. The gay shops and stalls of flaunting wares are closed; the promenades, lately kept in trimmest order, are weed grown and neglected; the "sear and yellow leaves" are fluttering and rustling along the alleys where "Beauty's step was wont to tread. " Both music and fountains have ceased to play; the very statues are putting on great overcoats of snow, while the orange trees file off like a sad funeral procession to hide themselves in dusky sheds till the coming spring.