A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ Even the blue cloth in the distance twinkled, and Ferdinand saw at a glance that it was embroidered with silver.
But the finest flash of all came from a barge moored in the canal just below them, where a middle-aged woman sat scouring a copper pan.
"Good-day!" cried Ferdinand across the hedge. "Why are you doing that?"
"Why, in honour of the wedding, to be sure! Must show one's best at such times, if only for one's own satisfaction." ”

“ They took hands and trotted to the end of the orchard, and there, beyond the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country stretched away to the sea—a land dotted with windmills and cattle and red-and-white houses with weathercocks—a land, too, criss-crossed with canals, whereon dozens of boats and even some large ships threaded their way like dancers in and out of the groups of cattle, or sailed past a house so closely as almost to poke a bowsprit through the front door. ”

“ The Grand Duke and the Princess believed that all this beauty was in their honour, no less than the chorus of the bells floating across the tree-tops from the city.
"This is the best of all," said Ferdinand, as they seated themselves by the stream. "I had no idea marriage was such fun. And they haven't even forgotten the trout!" ”