The house, also, without
being tavern or shop, was an amateur bazaar of _vivers_ and
goods. Anything one was likely to want could be had there,--even a
melodeon and those inevitable Patent-Office Reports. Here we
descended, lunched, and providently bought a general assortment,
namely, a large plain cake, five pounds of cheese, a ball of twine,
and two pairs of brown ribbed woollen socks, native manufacture. My
pair of these indestructibles will outlast my last legs and go as an
heirloom after me.
The weather now, as we drove on, seemed to think that Iglesias
deserved better of it. Rain-globes strung upon branches, each globe
the possible home of a sparkle, had waited long enough unillumined.
Sunlight suddenly discovered this desponding patience and rewarded
it. Every drop selected its own ray from the liberal bundle, and,
crowding itself full of radiance, became a mirror of sky and cloud and
forest. Also, by the searching sunbeams' store of regal purple, ripe
raspberries were betrayed. On these, magnified by their convex lenses
of water, we pounced. Showers shook playfully upon us from the vines,
while we revelled in fruitiness. We ran before our gormers, they
gormed by us while we plucked, we ran by, plucked again, and again
were gormingly overtaken and overtook.
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