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It is one of our "natural hazards," and I have thought no more of it than I would of the cushion on a billiard table. I shall never cross that brook again without thinking of her face as I saw it mirrored in the shadows of the old stone bridge. The reflection was framed with delicate interfacings of water cress, while in the bed of the stream the smooth pebbles gleamed like pearls.

It is probable that, in the interfacings of human lives, events are happening every moment which, although bearing according to present knowledge no possible relation to our own lives, are yet to have an influence on our future and make havoc with our expectations. The train is laid, the fuse is lit, long before we know it.

But the foliage of "Gladswood"! We have no powers capable of description. The majestic maples, stately willows and graceful elms were grouped with an effect that baffled the mind of man. And the interfacings of soft feathery furze, moss and ferns. Surely this spot must have been in the mystic ages one grand amphitheatre for the sylvan deities.

The front had two crosses beneath semicircular heads, with conventional trees or candlesticks beside them, and a great piece of circular interfacings, small and large, like the slabs at S. Maria in Trastevere, Rome. The sides had bands of ornament dividing the surface into unornamented sunken panels.

One of these was the slatted cuirass or corslet, which was formed of a series of narrow slats of wood set side by side vertically and fastened in place by interfacings of raw hide. It went all round the body, being hung from the shoulders with straps. The other was a kind of shirt of double or treble elk hide, fastened at the side with thongs.

The latter, judging patience their best policy, sat in silence while the delicate fancy of the savages expended itself in arabesques and flourishes. Perez and Aragon had their eyes surrounded with red spectacles. The face of Marcoy, covered with a heavy beard, only allowed room for a "W" on the forehead, and Pepe Garcia was quit for a set of interfacings like a checkerboard.

In each of them was throned a flame that seemed the very fiery essence of vitality. The BODY was convex, swelling outward like the boss of a shield; shimmering rosy-gray and crystalline. From the vital ovoids ran a pattern of sparkling threads, irised and brilliant as floss of molten jewels; converging with interfacings of spirals, of volutes and of triangles into the nucleus.

Then here in the open court are others doing just the same, except that, instead of the clay, they have for floor a depression filled with deep sand, with which they sprinkle one another, scraping up the dust on purpose, like fowls; I suppose they want their interfacings to be tighter; the sand is to neutralize the slipperiness of the oil, and by drying it up to give a firmer grip.