BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY. 199 



From the perfume of the growing grasses waving 

 over honey-laden clover and laughing veronica, hiding 

 the greenfinches, baffling the bee. From rose-loved 

 hedges, woodbine, and cornflower azure-blue, where 

 yellowing wheat- stalks crowd up under the shadow 

 of green firs. All the devious brooklet's sweetness 

 where the iris stays the sunlight ; all the wild woods 

 hold of beauty ; all the broad hill's thyme and free- 

 dom: thrice a hundred years repeated. A hundred 

 years of cowslips, blue-bells, violets; purple spring 

 and golden autumn ; sunshine, shower, and dewy 

 mornings; the night immortal; all the rhythm of 

 Time unrolling. A chronicle unwritten and past all 

 power of writing : who shall preserve a record of the 

 petals that fell from the roses a century ago ? The 

 swallows to the housetop three hundred times think 

 a moment of that. Thence she sprang, and the world 

 yearns towards her beauty as to flowers that are past. 

 The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. Is this 

 why passion is almost sad ? 



II. THE FORCE OF FORM. 



Her shoulders were broad, but not too broad just 

 enough to accentuate the waist, and to give a pleasant 

 sense of ease and power. She was strong, upright, 

 self-reliant, finished in herself. Her bust was full, 

 but not too prominent more after nature than the 

 dressmaker. There was something, though, of the 

 corset-maker in her waist, it appeared naturally fine, 

 and had been assisted to be finer. But it was in the 

 hips that the woman was perfect : fulness without 



