Chapter XIX

An ignorant foreign body--and, after all, everyone is a foreigner somewhere and ignorant about something--once committed the enormity of asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a friend's property through some piece of blundering.

But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and hedgerow?

* * * * *

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

The edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with _The Spirit of Rome_, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in 1910.

The following changes were made to the text:

solely for the purpose or solely for the purpose of

coeteris paribus cæeteris paribus

Mautineia (Higher Harmonies I) Mantineia

The Gothic boldness of light and The Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile make shade of the Campanile makes

Tuskan Tuscan

the workmen will be able (...) the workman will be able (...)

learn their appearance and care learn their appearance and care for it for them

The death, (...) the (...) The death, (...) the (...) flight of the fox, occupy no part flight of the fox, occupy no part (...) and forms no part (...) and form no part

the Monnets the Monets