And at length, one melancholy afternoon in the early autumn, and at a place where it seems to me, looking back, it must be always autumn and generally Sunday, there came suddenly upon the face of all I saw⁠—the long empty road, the lines of the tall houses, the church upon the hill, the woody hillside garden⁠—a look of such a piercing sadness that my heart died; and seating myself on a doorstep, I shed tears of miserable sympathy. A benevolent cat cumbered me the while with consolations⁠—we two were alone in all that was visible of the London Road: two poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow⁠—and she fawned upon the weeper, and gambolled for his entertainment, watching the effect it seemed, with motherly eyes.