wetness

The young man looked long and fixedly on the place, the sight of which interested him so much that he had forgotten, in the eagerness of youthful curiosity, the wetness of his dress.

“Oh! if I had my gravity,” thought she, contemplating the water, “I would flash off this balcony like a long white sea-bird, headlong into the darling wetness. Heigh-ho!”

They complained, that the wetness of the season, and the scarcity of fodder in the year 1762, with other natural causes, had reduced the quantity of fat cattle, by discouraging the farmers from rearing them.