aunt, Mrs.
Cameron, a widow. They have the prettiest cottage you ever saw on the
banks of the river, or rather rivulet, about a mile from this place.
Mrs. Cameron is a very good, simple-hearted woman. As to Lily, I can
praise her beauty only with safe conscience, for as yet she is a mere
child--her mind quite unformed."

"Did you ever meet any man, much less any woman, whose mind was formed?"
muttered Kenelm. "I am sure mine is not, and never will be on
this earth."

Mrs. Braefield did not hear this low-voiced observation. She was looking
about for Lily; and perceiving her at last as the children who
surrounded her were dispersing to renew the dance, she took Kenelm's
arm, led him to the young lady, and a formal introduction took place.

Formal as it could be on those sunlit swards, amidst the joy of summer
and the laugh of children. In such scene and such circumstance,
formality does not last long. I know not how it was, but in a very few
minutes Kenelm and Lily had ceased to be strangers to each other. They
found themselves seated apart from the rest of the merry-makers, on the
bank shadowed by lime-trees; the man listening with downcast eyes, the
girl with mobile shifting glances, now on earth, now on heaven, and
talking freely, gayly--like the babble of a happy stream, with a silvery
dulcet voice and a sparkle of rippling smiles.

No doubt this is a reversal of the formalities of well-bred life and
conventional narrating thereof. According to them, no doubt, it is for
the man to talk and the maid to listen; but I state the facts as they
were, honestly. And Lily knew no more of the formalities of drawing-room
life than a skylark fresh from its nest knows of the song-teacher and
the cage. She was still so much of a child. Mrs. Braefield was
right--her mind was still so unformed.

What she did talk about in that first talk between them that could make
the meditative Kenelm listen so mutely, so intently, I know not; at
least I could not jot it down on paper. I fear it was very egotistical,
as the talk of children generally is--about herself and her aunt and her
home and her friends--all her friends seemed children like herself,
though younger--Clemmy the chief of them. Clemmy was the one who had
taken a fancy to Kenelm. And amidst all the ingenuous prattle there came
flashes of a quick intellect, a lively fancy--nay, even a poetry of
expression or of sentiment. It might be the talk of a child, but
certainly not of