“A little jam and a biscuit.”
Archibald Lyndsay lit a pipe and lay upon his back on the meager grasses, with hands clasped behind his head. His eyes wandered from the clouds overhead to Rose, and thence to wood or stream.
“The court has dined, M. A.,” she said. “What now?”
“I am afraid,” he returned, “it is too late for you to sketch in colors the trees, or even a bit of them. I wanted to get your notion of the tints; but look at this—I am not quite sure I myself see colors at their true values. There is no standard in which to try our sense of color. I am sure some men see a tint bright, and some see it darker, and then some artists are sensational in their statement of colors on canvas.”
“I should like to try.”
“We are a little too late; but the sun is back of us yet. That is essential. Now, keep in shadow, and tell me the color of those sun-lit myriads of dead pine and fir and spruce and poplar.”
“How they shine!”
“Yes; they are very hard, and polished by storm and sun. They are about a hundred yards distant. Near by they are silvery-gray. At their feet is a mass of young birch and beech, and feathered ferns below, along the margin.”
“They are purple,—clear, distinct purple,” said Rose. “Of course, they are purple.”
“Yes. Now look at the river.” All between the two observers and the trees was a swift flow of hastening water, faintly fretted all over by the underlying brown and gray and white stones of the bottom,—a tremulous brown mirror.