The gardeners' tidy souls could not abide the gold and green
and russet pattern on the grass. The gravel paths must lie unstained,
ordered, methodical, without knowledge of the realities of life, nor of
that slow and beautiful decay which flings crowns underfoot to star the
earth with fallen glories, whence, as the cycle rolls, will leap again
wild spring.
Thus each leaf that fell was marked from the moment when it fluttered a
good-bye and dropped, slow turning, from its twig.
But on that little pond the leaves floated in peace, and praised Heaven
with their hues, the sunlight haunting over them.
And so young Jolyon found them.
Coming there one morning in the middle of October, he was disconcerted
to find a bench about twenty paces from his stand occupied, for he had a
proper horror of anyone seeing him at work.
A lady in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with her eyes fixed on the
ground. A flowering laurel, however, stood between, and, taking shelter
behind this, young Jolyon prepared his easel.
His preparations were leisurely; he caught, as every true artist should,
at anything that might delay for a moment the effort of his work, and he
found himself looking furtively at this unknown dame.
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