Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"A happy May to you, Sarah!" John stepped out beside her, and making his boat fast, followed her up the narrow path and around the shoulder of the steep meadow. They overed a stile, then a second, and were among pink slopes of orchards in bloom. Ahead of them a church tower rose out of soft billows of apple-blossom, and above the tower a lark was singing.
"She is the light on the foam. She is white and odorous as an apple-blossom. She smells of spice and honey. She is my beloved beyond the women of the world. She shall never be taken from me." And that thought was delight and anguish to him: delight because of such sweet prospect, anguish because it was not yet realised, and might not be.
To the eye, a mottled, dimpled glory of apple-blossom spread above grey trunks and twisted branches, shone through deep vistas of the orchard, brightened all the distance; while upon the ear, now growing and deepening, arose one sustained and musical susurration of innumerable wings. "You will be wise to stay here," said Hicks.
This was the season for picnics, for walks along the fields by the riverside, for boating, for bathing, for garden teas, for breakfast parties at the Orchard, amidst the pink and white wonder of the apple-blossom. What could you wish for more? Margaret, preternaturally solemn, opined that ten would be a more desirable number. "Poor Mrs Reeves! What has she done?
In arranging the house for the spring wedding the florists have hit upon a new device of having only one flower in masses; so we hear of the apple-blossom wedding, the lilac wedding, the lily wedding, the rose wedding and the daffodil wedding, the violet wedding, and the daisy wedding.
The smoking embers, the torn-up pathway, denoted the hard-fought struggle; and as I passed along, I could see that every garden, where the cherry and the apple-blossom were even still perfuming the air, had now its sepulchre. "Halt, there!" cried a hoarse voice in front. "You cannot pass this way, the commander-in-chief's quarters."
The tree is not large, and it is likely to be set with crooked, thorny branches; but the flowers! Deep pink or rosy red chalices, rather longer than the commonplace apple-blossom, and hanging on long and slender stems in a certain picturesquely stiff disposition, they are a joy for the senses of sight and fragrance.
"The Lady Whimsical never says," answered the dragon drowsily, as he curled himself up in the sun and closed his eyes; "but she will allow you to look at her for five minutes every morning, at two hours after sunrise." Two hours after sunrise on the following morning, King Grumbelo was accordingly admitted into the garden beyond the pink-and-white gates of apple-blossom.
It winds a good deal. Every hundred yards or so comes a great promontory of sandbags, necessitating four right-angle turns. Once we pass under the shadow of trees, and apple-blossom flutters down upon our upturned faces. We are walking through an orchard. Despite the efforts of ten million armed men, brown old Mother Earth has made it plain that seedtime and harvest shall still prevail.
There is the tiny walled inclosure above the stables at Shaws, once used as a milking-yard, and just now a veritable posy of daisies, buttercups, rich green grass, and apple-blossom. For in it there are six or seven gnarled and lichen-grown old apple-trees, whose fruit is of small account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees.
Word Of The Day