Yet everywhere the slow movements, the faded, tranquil colors,--dull blue garments, dusky red tiles, deep bronze-green foliage overhanging a vista of subdued white and gray,--consorted with the spindling shadows and low-streaming vesper light.

Keepers of humble shops lounged in the open air with their gossips, smoking bright pipes of the Yunnan white copper, nodding and blinking gravely.

Above them, no less courteous and placid, little doorway shrines besought the Earth-God to lead the Giver of Wealth within.

Sometimes, where a narrow lane gaped opposite a door, small stone lions sat grinning upon pillars, to scare away the Secret Arrow of misfortune.

But these rarely: the village seemed a happy place, favored of the Influences.