lady still slept.

About him, for three quadrants of the circle of the world, arose low-
rolling hills, smooth, fenced, cropped, and pastured, that melted into
higher hills and steeper wooded slopes that merged upward, steeper,
into mighty mountains. The fourth quadrant was unbounded by mountain
walls and hills. It faded away, descending easily to vast far flatlands,
which, despite the clear brittle air of frost, were too vast and far
to scan across.

The mare under him snorted. His knees tightened as he straightened her
into the road and forced her to one side. Down upon him, with a
pattering of feet on the gravel, flowed a river of white shimmering
silk. He knew it at sight for his prize herd of Angora goats, each
with a pedigree, each with a history. There had to be a near two
hundred of them, and he knew, according to the rigorous selection he
commanded, not having been clipped in the fall, that the shining
mohair draping the sides of the least of them, as fine as any human
new-born baby's hair and finer, as white as any human albino's thatch
and whiter, was longer than the twelve-inch staple, and that the
mohair of the best of them would dye any color into twenty-inch
switches for women's heads and sell at prices unreasonable and
profound.

The beauty of the sight held him as well. The roadway had become a
flowing ribbon of silk, gemmed with yellow cat-like eyes that floated
past wary and curious in their regard for him and his nervous horse.
Two Basque herders brought up the rear. They were short, broad,
swarthy men, black-eyed, vivid-faced, contemplative and philosophic of
expression. They pulled off their hats and ducked their heads to him.