as the visionary nursling of your own fancy; and
she will grow upon you, all the more clearly, as
the living woman who dwells in mine.

Among the sensations that crowded on me,
when my eyes first looked upon her—familiar
sensations which we all know, which spring to
life in most of our hearts, die again in so many,
and renew their bright existence in so few—
there was one that troubled and perplexed me;
one that seemed strangely inconsistent and
unaccountably out of place in Miss Fairlie's
presence.

Mingling with the vivid impression produced
by the charm of her fair face and head, her
sweet expression, and her winning simplicity of
manner, was another impression, which, in a
shadowy way, suggested to me the idea of
something wanting. At one time it seemed
like something wanting in her; at another,
like something wanting in myself, which
hindered me from understanding her as I ought.
The impression was always strongest, in
the most contradictory manner, when she
looked at me; or, in other words, when I
was most conscious of the harmony and
charm of her face, and yet, at the same
time, most troubled by the sense of an
incompleteness which it was impossible to discover.
Something wanting, something wanting—and
where it was, and what it was, I could not say.

The effect of this curious caprice of fancy (as
I thought it then) was not of a nature to set
me at my ease, during a first interview with
Miss Fairlie. The few kind words of welcome
which she spoke found me hardly self-possessed
enough to thank her in the customary phrases
of reply. Observing my hesitation, and no
doubt attributing it, naturally enough, to some
momentary shyness, on my part, Miss Halcombe
took the business of talking, as easily and readily
as usual, into her own hands.

"Look there, Mr. Hartright," she said,
pointing to the sketch-book on the table, and
to the little delicate wandering hand that was
still trifling with it. "Surely you will acknowledge
that your model pupil is found at last?
The moment she hears that you are in the
house, she seizes her inestimable sketch-book,
looks universal Nature straight in the face, and
longs to begin!"

Miss Fairlie laughed with a ready good
humour, which broke out, as brightly as if it had
been part of the sunshine above us, over her
lovely face.

"I must not take credit to myself where no
credit is due," she said; her clear, truthful blue
eyes looking alternately at Miss Halcombe and
at me. "Fond as I am of drawing, I am so
conscious of my own ignorance that I am more
afraid than anxious to begin. Now I know
you are here, Mr. Hartright, I find myself
looking over my sketches, as I used to look over
my lessons when I was a little girl, and when I
was sadly afraid that I should turn out not fit to
be heard."

She made the confession very prettily and
simply, and, with quaint, childish earnestness,
drew the sketch-book away close to her own
side of the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot
of the little embarrassment forthwith, in her
resolute, downright way.

"Good, bad, or indifferent," she said, "the
pupil's sketches must pass through the fiery
ordeal of the master's judgment—and there's
an end of it. Suppose we take them with us
in the carriage, Laura, and let Mr. Hartright
see them, for the first time, under
circumstances of perpetual jolting and interruption?
If we can only confuse him all through the
drive, between Nature as it is, when he looks
up at the view, and Nature as it is not, when he
looks down again at our sketch-books, we shall
drive him into the last desperate refuge of paying
us compliments, and shall slip through his
professional fingers with our pet feathers of
vanity all unruffled."

"I hope Mr. Hartright will pay me no
compliments," said Miss Fairlie, as we all left
the summer-house.

"May I venture to inquire why you express
that hope?" I asked.

"Because I shall believe all that you say to
me," she answered, simply.

In those few words she unconsciously gave
me the key to her whole character; to that
generous trust in others which, in her nature,
grew innocently out of the sense of her own
truth. I only knew it intuitively, then. I
know it by experience, now.

We merely waited to rouse good Mrs. Vesey
from the place which she still occupied at the
deserted luncheon-table, before we entered the
open carriage for our promised drive. The old
lady and Miss Halcombe occupied the back
seat; and Miss Fairlie and I sat together in
front, with the sketch-book open between us,
fairly exhibited at last to my professional eyes.
All serious criticism on the drawings, even if I
had been disposed to volunteer it, was rendered
impossible by Miss Halcombe's lively resolution
to see nothing but the ridiculous side of the
Fine Arts, as practised by herself, her sister,
and ladies in general. I can remember the
conversation that passed, far more easily than
the sketches that I mechanically looked over.
That part of the talk, especially, in which Miss
Fairlie took any share, is still as vividly
impressed on my memory as if I had heard it
only a few hours ago.

Yes! let me acknowledge that, on this first
day, I let the charm of her presence lure me
from the recollection of myself and my position.
The most trifling of the questions that she put
to me, on the subject of using her pencil and
mixing her colours; the slightest alterations of
expression in the lovely eyes that looked into
mine, with such an earnest desire to learn all
that I could teach and to discover all that I
could show, attracted more of my attention
than the finest view we passed through, or the
grandest changes of light and shade, as they
flowed into each other over the waving
moorland and the level beach. At any time, and
under any circumstances of human interest, is it