d_! The forehead in
the rector's description was high, narrow, and sloping backward from the
brow; the eyebrows were faintly marked; and the eyes small, and in color
either gray or hazel. This woman's forehead was low, upright, and
broad toward the temples; her eyebrows, at once strongly and delicately
marked, were a shade darker than her hair; her eyes, large, bright, and
well opened, were of that purely blue color, without a tinge in it of
gray or green, so often presented to our admiration in pictures and
books, so rarely met with in the living face. The nose in the rector's
description was aquiline. The line of this woman's nose bent neither
outward nor inward: it was the straight, delicately molded nose (with
the short upper lip beneath) of the ancient statues and busts. The
lips in the rector's description were thin and the upper lip long; the
complexion was of a dull, sickly paleness; the chin retreating and the
mark of a mole or a scar on the left side of it. This woman's lips were
full, rich, and sensual. Her complexion was the lovely complexion which
accompanies such hair as hers--so delicately bright in its rosier tints,
so warmly and softly white in its gentler gradations of color on the
forehead and the neck. Her chin, round and dimpled, was pure of the
slightest blemish in every part of it, and perfectly in line with her
forehead to the end. Nearer and nearer, and fairer and fairer she
came, in the glow of the morning light--the most startling, the most
unanswerable contradiction that eye could see or mind conceive to the
description in the rector's letter.

Both governess and pupil were close to the summer-house before they
looked that way, and noticed Midwinter standing inside. The governess
saw him first.

"A friend of yours, Miss Milroy?" she asked, quietly, without starting
or betraying any sign of surprise.

Neelie recognized him instantly. Prejudiced against Midwinter by his
conduct when his friend had introduced him at the cottage, she now
fairly detested him as the unlucky first cause of her misunderstanding
with Allan at the picnic. Her face flushed and she drew back from the
summerhouse with an expression of merciless surprise.

"He is a friend of Mr. Armadale's," she replied sharply. "I don't know
what he wants, or why he is here."

"A friend of Mr. Armadale's!" The governess's face lighted up with
a suddenly roused interest as she repeated the words. She returned
Midwinter's look, still