Faded Prestige

This evening it is the broadly striped cravat of pale lemon and ink blue.  This tie has an aged, frail look to its colours, as if it were owned long ago and laid away.  Perhaps the yellow was once bold, a dandelion erupting in the centre of a wide estate's lawn.  Perhaps the blue, now almost violet-tinged, was dark and sharp like the firm handwriting of a stern patriarch whose orders given even by letter were cause for consternation and immediate response.  No matter now.  The father is dead, and the once-grand estate is empty and ruinous.