straggling yard,
surveyed the highroad, on one side, from behind a transparent curtain of
poplars. A narrow stream half-choked with emerald rushes and edged with
grey aspens occupied the opposite quarter. The meadows rolled and
sloped away gently to the low horizon, which was barely concealed by the
continuous line of clipped and marshalled trees. The prospect was not
rich, but had a frank homeliness that touched the young man's fancy.
It was full of light atmosphere and diffused clearness, and if it was
prosaic it was somehow sociable.

Longmore was disposed to walk further, and he advanced along the road
beneath the poplars. In twenty minutes he came to a village which
straggled away to the right, among orchards and potagers. On the left,
at a stone's throw from the road, stood a little pink-faced inn which
reminded him that he had not breakfasted, having left home with a
prevision of hospitality from Madame de Mauves. In the inn he found a
brick-tiled parlour and a hostess in sabots and a white cap, whom, over
the omelette she speedily served him--borrowing licence from the bottle
of sound red wine that accompanied it--he assured she was a true artist.
To reward his compliment she invited him to smoke his cigar in her
little garden behind the house.

Here he found a tonnelle and a view of tinted crops stretching down to
the stream. The tonnelle was rather close, and he preferred to lounge on
a bench against the pink wall, in the sun, which was not too hot. Here,
as he rested and gazed and mused, he fell into a train of thought which,
in an indefinable fashion, was a soft influence from the scene about
him. His heart, which had been beating fast for the past three hours,
gradually checked its pulses and left him looking at life with rather a
more level gaze. The friendly tavern sounds coming out through the open
windows, the sunny stillness of the yellowing grain which covered
so much vigorous natural life, conveyed no strained nor high-pitched
message, had little to say about renunciation--nothing at all about
spiritual zeal. They communicated the sense of plain ripe nature,
expressed the unperverted reality of things, declared that the common
lot isn't brilliantly amusing and that the part of wisdom is to grasp
frankly at experience lest you miss it altogether. What reason there was
for his beginning to wonder after this whether a deeply-wounded heart
might be soothed and healed by such a scene, it would be difficu