auged; Mr. Mardale claimed to have
invented a wheel of perpetual rotation. Sir Charles, however, had his
impulses of kindness. He knew Mr. Mardale to be an old and gentle
person, a little touched in the head perhaps, who with money enough
to surfeit every instinct of pleasure, had preferred to live a shy
secluded life, busily engaged either in the collection of curiosities
or the invention of toy-like futile machines. There was a girl too
whom Sir Charles remembered, a weird elfin creature with extraordinary
black eyes and hair and a clear white face. Her one regret in those
days had been that she was not born a horse, and she had lived in the
stables, in as horse like a fashion as was possible. Her ankle indeed
still must bear an unnecessary scar through the application of a
fierce horse-liniment to a sprain. No doubt, however, she had long
since changed her ambitions. Sir Charles calculated her age. Resilda
Mardale must be twenty-five years old and a deuced fine woman into the
bargain. Sir Charles took a glance at his figure in his cheval-glass.
He had reached middle-age to be sure, but he had a leg that many a
spindle-shanked youngster might envy, nor was there any unbecoming
protuberance at his waist. He wrote a letter accepting the invitation
and a week later in the dusk of a June evening, drove up the long
avenue of trees to the terrace of the Quarry House.

The house was a solid square mansion built upon the side of a hill,
and the ground in front of it fell away very quickly from the terrace
to what Sir Charles imagined must be a pond, for a light mist hung at
the bottom. On the other side of the pond the ground rose again in a
steep hill. But Sir Charles had no opportunity at this moment to get
any accurate knowledge of the house and its surroundings. For apart
from the darkness, it was close upon supper-time and Miss Resilda
Mardale must assuredly not be kept waiting. His valet subsequently
declared that Sir Charles had seldom been so particular in the choice
of his coat and small-clothes; and the supper-bell certainly rang out
before he was satisfied with the set of his cravat.

He could not, however, consider his pains wasted when once he was set
down opposite to Resilda. She was taller than he had expected her to
be, but he did not count height a fault so long as there was grace
to carry it off, and grace she had in plenty. Her face had gained in
delicacy and lost nothing of its brilliancy, or of its remar