The garden at the Callow was full of old, sad-coloured flowers that had
lost all names but the country ones. Chief among them, by reason of its
hardihood, was a small plant called virgin's pride. Its ephemeral
petals, pale and bee-haunted, fluttered like banners of some lost,
forgotten cause. The garden was hazy with their demure, faintly scented
flowers, and the voices of the bees came up in a soft roar
triumphantly, as the voices of victors returning with hardwon spoil.

Abel had been putting some new sections on the hives, and, as usual,
after a long spell of listening to their low, changeless music, he
rushed in for his harp. He sat down under the hawthorn by the gate, and
looked like a patriarch beneath a pale green tint. As day declined the
music waxed; he played with a tenderness, a rage of delight, that did
not often come to him except on spring evenings. He almost touched
genius. Hazel came out, leaving the floor half scrubbed, and began to
dance on the potato flat.

'Dunna stomp the taters to jeath, 'Azel!' said he.

'They binna up!' she replied, continuing to dance.

He never wasted words. He continued the air with one hand and threw a
stone at her with the other. He hit her on the cheek.

'You wold beast!' she screamed.

'Gerroff taters!' He continued to play.

She went, hand to cheek, and frowning, off the potato patch. But she