John Constable The Hay Wain

John Constable The Hay WainJohn Constable Salisbury CathedralJohn Constable Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
"But if she loved him..."
"Well," said Mary, "love is ferocious, too."
"But he loved my mother," said Will. "And I can tell her that he was never unfaithful."
Lyra, looking at Will, thought that if he fell in love, he would be like that.
All around them the quiet noises of the afternoon hung in the warm air: the endless trickling sucking of the marshwhere the blue of the sky paled at the edge of the sea, and the sea took up the pallor and made it sparkle through the shimmering air.
She showed Will and Lyra how to gather a particular kind of mollusk by finding their breathing tubes just above the sand. The mulefa loved them, but it was hard for them to move on the sand and gather them. Whenever Mary came to the shore, she harvested as many , the scraping of insects, the calling of gulls. The tide was fully out, so the whole extent of the beach was clear and glistening under the bright sun. A billion tiny mud creatures lived and ate and died in the top layer of sand, and the little casts and breathing holes and invisible movements showed that the whole landscape was telling the others why, Mary looked out to the distant sea, scanning the horizon for white sails. But there was only hazy glitter