On inquiring for her at her house they had
told him she was at the sheepwashing, and he went off
to seek her there.
The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin
of brickwork in the meadows, full of the clearest water.
To birds on the wing its glassy surface, reflecting the
light sky, must have been visible for miles around as a
glistening Cyclops' eye in a green face. The grass
about the margin at this season was a sight to remember
long -- in a minor sort of way. Its activity in sucking
the moisture from the rich damp sod. was almost a pro-
cess observable by the eye. The outskirts of this level
water-meadow were diversified by rounded and hollow
pastures, where just now every flower that was not a
buttercup was a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly
as a shade, the swelling reeds and sedge forming a
flexible palisade upon its moist brink. To the north
of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new,
soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened
under summer sun and drought, their colour being
yellow beside a green -- green beside a yellow.
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