therefore, that I promptly sought it, hovered about it a moment—and entered? How much of that grateful governmental twelve-pound-ten came out alive, I dare not tell my dearest friend.
At all events I came out somehow reassured, more rich in faith. There was a might of poesy after all. There were words in the little yellow-leaved garland, nestling like a bird in my hand, that would outlast the bank yonder, and outlive us all. I held it up. How tiny it seemed, how frail amid all this stone and iron! A mere flower—a flower from the seventeenth century—long-lived for a flower! Yes, an immortelle.
[BROWN ROSES]
'Well, I never thought to see this day, sir,' said Gibbs, with something like tears in his voice, as he reluctantly plied his scissors upon Hyacinth Rondel's distinguished curls.
'Nor I, Gibbs—nor I!' said Rondel sadly, relapsing into silence again, with his head meekly bent over the white sheet spread to catch his shorn beauty.
'To think of the times, sir, that I have dressed your head,' continued Gibbs, whose grief bore so marked an emphasis, 'and to think that after to-day ...'
'But you forget, my dear Gibbs, that I shall now be a more constant customer than ever!'
'Ah, sir, but that will be different. It will be mere machine-cutting, lawn-mowing, steam-reaping, if you understand me; there'll
be no pleasure in it, no artistic pleasure, I mean.'
'Yes, Gibbs, and you are an artist—I have often told you that.'