smiling face. The good storm, albeit black and angry, behaved benignly.
Gentle rain came, and a picturesque little electrical display to a
humming accompaniment of far distant thunder, followed by a soothingly
cool south-westerly breeze. Just at sundown the weather-god, repenting of
his frown, bestowed a glorious benediction.

All afternoon a damp pall had overhung the Island, mopping up feeble
sounds and strangely muffling the stronger. Now it was translated.
Lifting so that the summits only of the hills were capped, the haze (for
it became nothing more) assumed a luminous yellow saffron suffused with
sage green. Against this singularly lovely, ample "cloth" branches and
leaves of steadfast trees stood out in high relief. All the lower levels
became transparently clear, the definition of distant objects magically
sharpened, spaces translucent. In a sea which shone like polished silver
the islet was a gem--green enamel, amethyst rocks, golden sand. The bold
white trunks of giant tea-trees glowed; the creamy blooms of bloodwoods
were as flecks of snow; the tips of the fronds of coco-nut palms
flickered vividly as burnished steel; the white-painted house assumed
speckless purity. All light colours were heightened; ruddy browns and
sombre greens seemed to have been smartened up by touches of fresh paint
and varnish. An idealistic artist had revealed for once living tints and
uncomprehended hues.

Was it not a landscape fresh from Nature's brush divinely transmogrified
by one bold smudge of yellow-green haze? Or was the effect partly due to
the dust raised by the golden fringe of the blue mantle which the sun
trailed over the glowing hills? I know naught of the chemistry of colours,
nor why this yellow-green medium should so clarify and etherealise the
atmosphere. But was ever clear sunset half so affecting? This tinted,
luminous cloud had bewitched the commonplace, converting familiar