GOLDEN-BROWN 



THREE fruit-pickers women were the first people 

 I met near the village (in Kent). They were clad in 

 "rags and jags," and the face of the eldest was in 

 " jags " also. It was torn and scarred by time and 

 weather; wrinkled, and in a manner twisted like 

 the fantastic turns of a gnarled tree-trunk, hollow 

 and decayed. Through these jags and tearings of 

 weather, wind, and work, the nakedness of the coun- 

 tenance the barren framework was visible; the 

 cheekbones like knuckles, the chin of brown stone- 

 ware, the upper-lip smooth, and without the short, 

 groove which should appear between lip and nostrils. 

 Black shadows dwelt in the hollows of the cheeks and 

 temples, and there was a blackness about the eyes. 

 This blackness gathers in the faces of the old who 

 have been much exposed to the sun, the fibres of the 

 skin are scorched and half -charred, like a stick thrust 

 in the fire, and withdrawn before the flames seize it. 

 Beside her were two young women, both in the fresh- 

 ness of youth and health. Their faces glowed with 

 a golden-brown, and so great is the effect of colour 

 that their plain features were transfigured. The 

 sunlight under their faces made them beautiful. 

 The summer light had been absorbed by the skin 

 and now shone forth from it again; as certain sub- 

 stances exposed to the day absorb light and emit a 

 phosphorescent gleam in the darkness of night, so 

 the sunlight had been drunk up by the surface of the 

 skin, and emanated from it. 



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