-day for all the country lying round
that wondrous cathedral-spire, which shot into the air far-reaching and
ethereal, like some fountain whose column of water had been arrested
aloft and changed to ice.

The old quiet town was busy, with a rich sunshine shed upon it, in which
the first yellow butterflies of the year had begun to dance.

It was high noon, and the highest tide of the market.

Flower-girls, fruit-girls, egg-sellers, poultry-hucksters, crowds of
women, old and young, had jolted in on their docile asses, throned on
their sheepskin saddles; and now, chattering and chaffering, drove fast
their trade. On the steps of the cathedral boys with birds'-nests,
knife-grinders making their little wheels fly, cobblers hammering, with
boards across their knees, travelling pedlars with knapsacks full of
toys and mirrors, and holy images, and strings of beads, sat side by
side in amicable competition.

Here and there a priest passed, with his black robe and broad hat, like
a dusky mushroom amongst a bed of many-hued gillyflowers. Here and there
a soldier, all colour and glitter, showed like a gaudy red tulip in
bloom amidst tufts of thyme.

The old wrinkled leathern awnings of the market-stalls glowed like
copper in the brightness of noon. The red tiles of the houses edging the
great square were gilded with yellow houseleeks. The little children ran
hither and thither with big bunches of primroses or sheaves of blue
wood-hyacinths, singing. The red and blue serges of the young girls'
bodices were like the gay hues of the anemones in their baskets. The
brown faces of the old dames under the white roofing of their headgear
were like the russet faces of the home-kept apples which they had
garnered through all the winter.

Everywhere in the shade of the flapping leather, and the darkness of
the wooden porches, there were the tender blossoms of the field and
forest, of the hedge and garden. The azure of the hyacinths, the pale
saffron of the primroses, the cool hues of the meadow daffodils, the
ruby eyes of the cultured jonquils, gleamed amongst wet rushes, grey
herbs, and freshly budded leafage. Plovers' eggs nestled in moss-lined
baskets; sheaves of velvet-coated wallflowers poured fragrance on the
air; great plumes of lilac nodded on the wind, and amber feathers of
laburnum waved above the homelier masses of mint and marjoram, and sage
and chervil.

_IDALIA._

Whatever fate rose for them with the dawn, thi