GOLDEN-BROWN. 25 



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. 



Hour after hour in the gardens and orchards they 

 worked in the full beams of the sun, gathering fruit 

 for the London market, resting at midday in the shade 

 of the elms in the corner. Even then they were in 

 the sunshine — even in the shade, for the air carries it, 

 or its influence, as it carries the perfumes of flowers. 

 The heated air undulates over the field in waves which 

 are visible at a distance ; near at hand they are not 

 seen, but roll in endless ripples through the shadows 

 of the trees, bringing with them the actinic power 

 of the sun. Not actinic- — alchemic — some intangible, 

 mysterious power which cannot be supplied in any 

 other form but the sun's rays. It reddens the cherry, 

 it gilds the apple, it colours the rose, it ripens the 

 wheat, it touches a woman's face with the golden- 

 brown of ripe life — ripe as a plum. There is no 

 other hue so beautiful as this human sunshine tint. 



The great painters knew it — Eubens, for instance ; 

 perhaps he saw it on the faces of the women who 

 gathered fruit or laboured at the harvest in the Low 

 Countries centuries since. He could never have seen 

 it in a city of these northern climes, that is certain. 

 Nothing in nature that I know, except the human 

 face, ever attains this colour. Nothing like it is ever 

 seen in the sky, either at dawn or sunset ; the dawn 

 is often golden, often scarlet, or purple and gold; 

 the sunset crimson, flaming bright, or delicately gray 



