The rain had quite ceased, and the sun was shining
through the green, brown, and yellow leaves, now
sparkling and varnished by the raindrops to the bright-
ness of similar effects in the landscapes of Ruysdael and
Hobbema, and full of all those infinite beauties that
arise from the union of water and colour with high
lights. The air was rendered so transparent by the
heavy fall of rain that the autumn hues of the middle
distance were as rich as those near at hand, and the
remote fields intercepted by the angle of the tower ap-
peared in the same plane as the tower itself.
He entered the gravel path which would take him
behind the tower. The path, instead of being stony as
it had been the night before, was browned over with a
thin coating of mud. At one place in the path he saw
a tuft of stringy roots washed white and clean as a
bundle of tendons. He picked it up -- surely it could
not be one of the primroses he had planted? He saw
a bulb, another, and another as he advanced. Beyond
doubt they were the crocuses. With a face of perplexed
dismay Troy turned the corner and then beheld the
wreck the stream had made.
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