her mouth rather large, frank and smiling;
her eyebrows arched, as if they were
asking questions; and her eyes large, and of
a soft dark grey, very pleasant to look into,
very puzzling too, as I found afterwards to
my cost.  Those eyes were the only beauty
she possessed, and she unconsciously made
the most of them.  Had she been a Carmelite
nun, she would have talked with them:
she could not have helped it.  When they
laughed, it seemed their normal state—the
bright-beaming glance they gave; but, when
they darkened suddenly and grew softer and
deeper, and looked up into the face of any
unfortunate wight with an expression peculiar
to themselves, heaven help him!

  Though I had known her only five
minutes, I felt this, when I chanced to look
up and meet a curious glance she had fixed on
me.  She had ceased to talk, and was sitting,
with her lips half apart and a lovely colour
mantling on her cheek, studying my face
intently, when our eyes met.  There was an
electric kind of shock in the gaze.  I saw the
colour deepen and go up to her forehead, and
a shiver ran over me from head to foot.  It
was dangerous for me to watch that blush,
but I did; and I longed to know its cause,
and wondered what thought had brought it.

  " Fred, bring me my hat, " she said to her
dog, affecting to yawn. " It is time for us to
go home to supper, I suppose.  Are you
hungry, cousin Frank?"

  " Yes—no, " I answered, with my thoughts
still running on that blush.

  She laughed good-naturedly, and took the
hat from the Newfoundland, who had brought
it in his mouth.

  " How fond you are of that great dog," I
said, as we rose from our seat beneath the
tree.

  " Fond of him? " She stooped down over
him with a sudden impetuous movement, took
his head between her two hands, and kissed
the beauty-spot on his forehead.  " Fond of
him, cousin Frank? Why, the dog is my idol!
He is the only thing on earth who is or has
been true to me, and the only thing—" She
stopped short, and coloured.

  " That you have been true to," I said,
finishing the sentence for her.

  " So people say, " she answered, with a
laugh.  " But look at him—look at those
beautiful eyes, and tell me if any one could
help loving him. My poor old Fred! So
honest in this weary world."

  She sighed, and patted his head again, and
he stood wagging his tail and looking up into
her face, with eyes that were as she had said,
beautiful, and, what was better far, brimful
of love and honesty.

  " I doubt if you will keep pace with us,"
she said, after we had walked a few steps;
"and Fred is longing for a race; I always
give him one through the woods. Would you
mind?"

"Oh dear, no!"

  The next moment she was off like the
wind, and the dog tearing after her, barking
till the woods rang again.  I saw her that
night no more.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

  I WAS, as I have already said, a grave,
steady-going lawyer, verging towards a
respectable middle age, with one or two
grey hairs showing among my black locks.
I had had my dreams and fancies, and my
hot, eager, generous youth, like most other
men; and they had passed away. But one
thing I had not known, one thing I had
missed (save in my dreams), and that was a
woman's love.

  If I ever gave my visions a body and a
name, they were totally unlike all the realities
I had ever seen.  The wife of my fireside
reveries was a slight, delicate, gentle creature,
with a pure pale face, sweet lips, the bluest
and clearest of eyes, the softest and finest of
golden hair, and a voice low and sweet, like
the murmurings of an Æolian harp. And
she sat by my chair in silence; loving me
always, but loving me silently, and her name
was Mary.  I dare say, if I had met the
original of this placid picture in life, I should
have wooed and won her, and have been
utterly miserable.

  So, as a matter of course, I fell into
danger now.  When Alice Kent went
singing and dancing through the house,
leaving every door and window open as she
went, I used often to lay down my pen and
look after her, and feel as if the sun shone
brighter for her being there.  When she
raced through the grove or orchard with the
great dog at her heels, I smiled, and patted
Fred on the head: when she rode past the
house at a hand gallop on her grey pony,
Fra Diavolo, and leaped him over the garden
gate, and shook her whip saucily in my face,
I laid aside my book to admire her riding,
and never thought her unwomanly or ungraceful.

We grew to be great friends—like brother
and sister, I used to say to myself.  How that
liking glided gradually into loving, I could
not have told.  I met her one day in
the village street.  I turned a corner, and
came upon her suddenly.  She was walking
slowly along, with her dog beside her,
and her eyes fixed upon the ground, looking
graver and more thoughtful than I had ever
seen her before.  At sight of me her whole
face brightened suddenly; yet she passed me
with a slight nod and a smile, and took her
way towards home.  Seeing that flash of
light play over her grave face, and feeling
the sudden bound with which my heart
sprang up to meet it, I knew what we were
to each other.

  It was late when I reached home, after a
musing walk.  The farmer and his wife had
gone to bed, the children were at a merrymaking
at the next house, and a solitary light