Old Aeson
From Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies and Sketches. Judge between me and my guest, the stranger within my gates, the man whom in his extremity I clothed and fed.
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I remember well the time of his coming, for it happened at the end of five days and nights during which the year passed from strength to age; in the interval between the swallow's departure and the redwing's coming; when the tortoise in my garden crept into his winter quarters, and the equinox was on us, with an east wind that parched the blood in the trees, so that their leaves for once knew no gradation
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