I 66 IDLEHURST : 



scarlet, and almost drowning the first white edge of 

 the new moon so both of us acting our own text, 

 and missing that finer sense of things of which we 

 talked. 



i$tk. To-day I was about the garden early, in 

 the pure cool of the morning. We had. a week 

 of flagrant heat, when the sun shone his fifteen 

 cloudless hours in a grey-blue sky, till the air 

 quivered, the soil was dust and ashes, and green leaves 

 drooped in the glow. Then one night the wind 

 shifted to the north, and brought a drift of smoky 

 cloud shot every half minute with a red underglow ; 

 and for an hour the rain drummed on the roof, the 

 lightning blazing through the flood in pale pink and 

 purple sheets, and the rending crackle of the over- 

 head thunder mingling with the bass boom which 

 shakes the rafters and jars the window-sashes. 



In the morning the wind was south, soft and 

 sweet ; all the dull heat was washed out of the air, 

 and the garden was moist and happy, with here and 

 there a breach made by the rush of the rain. I was 

 busy at repairs of these by six o'clock, because I was 

 engaged to spend the better part of the working day 

 down in the village. To-day the Arnington Court 

 of the Loyal Order of Ancient Saxons hold their 

 annual festival which they honestly call their Feet, 



