THE LOOM OF AUTUMN 203 



Now comes the second reign of the 

 orchard. In May she queened it with 

 flowers, and now again with her buxom 

 fruit. Beauty is deeply bedded in the 

 apple's skin; look at its texture, grain, 

 and harmonious colouring. This russet 

 with greenish cast, sucked by a fly, 

 might yield a book-binder hints for 

 the cover of some quaint Walton. The 

 Baldwin, as fervid red levant morocco, 

 in untempered Jansen style, should wrap 

 Laus Veneris. This stippled pippin 

 could guard Gerarde's Herball, and 

 these generous greenings, wrought in 

 gold, with angle, curve, and floriature, 

 might fitly bear the genial stamp of Gro- 

 lier, while Cobden-Sanderson could 

 ask for no daintier pattern for his 

 tooling than the gold leaf-shadows 

 dancing and latticing the heaps of the 

 Northern Spy. 



The apple holds the first place in 



