YESTERDAY was a day of encounters.
First, early in the morning, a young girl came down the road on a
bicycle. Her dressguard was loose, and she stopped to ask for a piece
of string. When I had tied it for her she looked at me, at my worn
dusty clothes and burnt face; and then she took a Niphetos rose from
her belt and laid it shyly in my dirty disfigured palm. I bared my
head, and stood hat in hand looking after her as she rode away up the
hill. Then I took my treasure and put it in a nest of cool dewy grass
under the hedge. _Ecce ancilla Domini._
My next visitor was a fellow-worker on his way to a job at the
cross-roads. He stood gazing meditatively at my heap of stones.
"'Ow long 'ave yer bin at this job that y'ere in such a hurry?"