Then the vapour became full of sudden motion. It rolled in great drifts, rose, broke into little wisps of smoke, and half lost itself in yellow light. The interplay was wonderful to watch. Sometimes the mist closed in again, hiding what it had half revealed, only to drift away once more like torn masses of gossamer. A great yellow ray of sunlight struck abruptly across the valley, fell upon the wood where the birds were singing, and splashed it with gold. Then the mist seemed to be drawn up like a curtain. Colour came into the landscape, the bronze and yellow of the budding oaks, the delicate green of young beech leaves, the sables of yews and firs, the blue of the sky, the green of the fields. It was all wet, fragrant, glittering, like an elf world lifted suddenly out of the waters of an enchanted sea. Someone sneezed. Eve turned sharply, and found Joan Gaunt was awake, and sitting up. Wisps of hay had got tangled in her hair, her blouse looked like an impressionist sunset, and one side of her face was red and mottled from lying on the canvas knapsack. She had been awake for ten minutes, and had pulled out a notebook and was scribbling in it with a pencil. Eve thought that she was turning the May morning into a word picture, but she soon noticed that Joan Gaunt’s eyes did not rise above the level of her notebook. “Busy already?” “Yes.” “Isn’t it wonderful?” “What?” “Why, all that.” Eve swept a hand towards the valley where the smoking squadrons of the mist were in full flight before the gold spears of the sun. “It looks as though it has been abominably damp. I’m quite stiff and I’ve caught cold.” She blew her nose hard, and, like the impervious enthusiast that she was, resumed her scribbling. Eve left her undisturbed, and returning to her corner of the recess let her hair down, and spent ten minutes brushing it. She had very fine hair, it reached well below her waist, and Lizzie Straker, who had just woke up, found something to say on the subject. “It must be a nuisance, having a fleece like that.” “Why?” “So beastly hot. I should like to have mine cut quite short.” The obvious answer, though Eve did not give it, was that some people’s hair did not matter. She went exploring in quest of somebody who would provide them with towels and water, and also with breakfast. And when they did get breakfast at a little farmhouse over the hill, her companions had to thank Eve for it, for the farmer’s wife was not a persuadable person, and would certainly have refused anything to Joan Gaunt or Lizzie Straker. Their white blouses were splashed and streaked with yellow, but luckily the sitting-room was rather dark, and the farmer’s wife was not observant. But Eve had seen these blouses in the full sunlight, and was candid in her criticism. “You must stop at the next village, and buy a couple of new blouses!” “Why, what does it matter?” Lizzie Straker was in a touchy and argumentative mood. “They really look too terrible!”