The name of the willow-pattern plat...

The name of the willow-pattern plate is given to the design because the flight of the lover took place during the season when the willow begins to shed its leaves.

- Leopold Wagner, Manners, Customs, and Observances, London, 1894

If alone in its cheapest, Woolworth's editions, by way of the million we dine along the old story. Under the orange-tree beside her father The mandarin's house the lover whisper in the pattern. Their words we cannot hear betray them. Now in the gardener's cottage they shelter. We know they are there because we cannot diocese them.

All this happens and