responsive and standing corn. But the day had brought no heaviness to
the sky, blue without a cloud, only a grave and increasing heat, a sun
which blinded the eyes and seemed to take no account of anything save
its steady purpose of ripening the fruit and grain.

Looking round one saw that it was not an impressive country. There were
no hills, no grandeurs, no proximity to the sea. It was a country whose
pageants were made, not by great heights or sombre woods, but by the
orderly and coloured procession of the harvests; where one recovered the
preoccupied sight of little children, seeing so much to absorb one near
the ground that one did not seek the horizon; where matters were
measured and done not by the clock but by the sun's height, by midday
heat and darkness, by the lowing of cows or the calling of lambs.

A woman, well on the way to middle age, sat in the house-place of a
small cottage on the white high-road. Everything had been done for the
night, the pigs and pony fed; the cow milked and the milk strained; the
churn cleaned and the cream standing. The hens had been driven in and
were almost asleep on their perches. The wood was ready for the morning
and the clock had been wound up. She had not had her supper yet she did
not remove her sun-bonnet or yard-boots. She cut herself a slice of
stale bread and a large piece of cheese, dipped a cup in the barrel of
buttermilk and sat down on a low stool with the bread and cheese in one
hand and the cup of milk in the other. She was evidently in great
perturbation, for at times she forgot to eat altogether and sat with the
bread and cheese suspended in her hand while she thought deeply. Her
rather large plain features had a dignity of expression which was
pleasing, though it betrayed a tendency to melancholy. She had no frown,
for her blue eyes were of excellent strength and one does not sit up
late in the country. She was tall and rather bony, a strong peasant