noon
Wild flowers sprang up everywhere , swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces , smiling wanly from shady nooks , peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls . The valley bloomed into a paradise . Every single moment , from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western wall , was one of colorful change . The valley swam in thick , transparent haze , golden at dawn , warm and white at noon , purple in the twilight . At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy iris in the air . Venters walked with Bess , once more in a dream , and watched the lights change on the walls , and faced the wind from out of the west . Always it brought softly to him strange , sweet tidings of far-off things .