had denuded such women's clubs as remained (if any other did) or this
their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to
uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if
not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it walked
still.

The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns--a gay survival from
Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms--days
before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a
monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a
processional march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real
clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green
hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop
wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some
approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the
older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year)
inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.

In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl
carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a
bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former, and the selection
of the latter, had been an operation of personal care.

There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train,
their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and
trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance
in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more
to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom
the years were drawing nigh when she should say, "I have no pleasure
in them," than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed