When autumn lingers in the lap of winter

The autumn of 1866 ended yesterday, and we have once more entered upon winter, —if a cloudless sky and warm sunshine, tempered by the balmy breath of gentle Zephyr, can be associated with that usually unwelcome visitor. So favorable a season as the one through which we have just passed, is almost unprecedented in this Province. Old people, both in town and country, assert that a more open autumn has not been experienced in these parts since the year of the great gale, 1813. It is a blessing to the poor when autumn thus “lingers in the lap of winter”.

Halifax Citizen, Dec. 1, 1866. Page 2 Column 6. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=D90uR9ClOh8C&dat=18661201&printsec=frontpage&hl=en