e and a riot of many
flowers made hedgerows and cottage gardens gay; while the spirit of the
hour was inspired by June and a sun at the zenith unclouded, the folk of
the hamlet drew their faces to sadness and mothers chid the children,
who could not pretend, but echoed the noontide hour in their hearts.

All were not attired for a funeral. A small crowd of women, with one or
two men among them, stood together where a sycamore threw a patch of
shade on a triangular space of grass near the church. There were fifty
of these people--ancient women, others in their prime, and many young
maidens. Some communion linked them and the few men who stood with them.
All wore a black band upon their left arms. Drab or grey was their
attire, but sun-bonnets nodded bright as butterflies among them, and even
their dull raiment was more cheerful than the gathering company in black
who now began to mass their numbers and crane their heads along the
highway.

Bridetown lies near the sea in a valley under a range of grassy downs.
It is the centre of a network of little lanes with cottages dotted upon
them, or set back behind small gardens. The dwellings stood under
thatch, or weathered tile, and their faces at this season were radiant
with roses and honeysuckles, jasmine and clematis. Pinks, lilies,
columbines made the garden patches gay, and, as though so many flowers
were not enough, the windows, too, shone with geraniums and the scarlet
tassels of great cactus, that lifted their exotic, thorny bodies behind
the window panes. Not a wall but flaunted red valerian and snapdragon.
Indeed Bridetown was decked with blooms.

Here and there in the midst stood better houses, with some expanse of
lawn before them and flat shrubs that throve in that snug vale. Good
walnut trees and mulberries threw their shadows on grass plat and house
front, while the murmur of bees came from many bright borders.

South the land rose again to the sea cliffs, for the spirits of ocean
and the west wind have left their mark upon Bride Vale. The white gulls
float aloft; the village elms are moulded by Zephyr with sure and steady
breath. Of forestal size and unstunted, yet they turn their backs, as it
were, upon the west and, yielding to that unsleeping pressure, incline
landward. The trees stray not far. They congregate in an oasis about
Bridetown, then wend away through valley meadows, but leave the green
hills bare. The high ground rolls upward to a gentle skyline