THE WINTRY GARDEN 
161 
like a Velasquez; jet with emerald sheen, bronze and 
ivory and copper, they strut and glitter in the sun stutter¬ 
ing their foolish speech, prosecuting their absurd activi¬ 
ties. A prosaic sight, if you will, to make such an ado 
about, but, nevertheless, alert, well-coloured, and brimful 
of movement and gaiety. 
For the poetry of the little commune one turns to its 
purely ornamental members, who are not concerned with 
practical usefulness of any sort. 
Some of them are bathing in the shallow, stone water- 
vessel ; some, having completed their angelic ablutions, 
are making elaborate toilets, preening and stretching 
white breasts and wings to the sun. Others circle in 
airy flights against the pale blue heaven; but the 
daintiest party of all is promenading up and down and 
to and fro upon the frost-veiled rose of the ancient-tiled 
roofs of their chateau, sloping ,steeply upward between 
thick bowers of ivy. 
That ivy is a disgrace, I know, and I am really going 
to have it cut . . . some day. It is incredibly bad 
for buildings, particularly for aged buildings; and yet, 
for the moment, let us forget its deleterious powers, and 
only see it as a romantic background for our white 
pigeons with the roseate toes. 
The frost has flung a veil of pearly gauze, light as a 
cobweb, over glossy clustered leaves and pale florets, so 
that the pacing birds are seen as in a hanging garden, 
say, somewhere near the borders of fairyland. As I 
watch I almost expect them to change before my eyes 
into the Enchanted Princess and the lords and ladies of 
her retinue. But, even as we look, rises a sudden alarm ; 
M 
