ery
nerve thrilling, his face flushed, a strange, unknown sensation filling
him with vague, sweet wonder, Lord Arleigh met his fate.

This was the picture he saw--a beautiful but by no means a common one.
In the trellised arbor, which contained a stand and one or two chairs,
was a young girl of tall, slender figure, with a fair, sweet face,
inexpressibly lovely, lilies and roses exquisitely blended--eyes like
blue hyacinths, large, bright, and starlight, with white lids and dark
long lashes, so dark that they gave a peculiar expression to the
eyes--one of beauty, thought, and originality. The lips were sweet and
sensitive, beautiful when smiling, but even more beautiful in repose.
The oval contour of the face was perfect; from the white brow, where the
veins were so clearly marked, rose a crown of golden hair, not brown or
auburn, but of pure pale gold--a dower of beauty in itself.

The expression of the face was one of shy virgin beauty. One could
imagine meeting it in the dim aisles of some cathedral, near the shrine
of a saint, as an angel or a Madonna; one could imagine it bending over
a sick child, lighting with its pure loveliness the home of sorrow; but
one could never picture it in a ball-room. It was a face of girlish,
saintly purity, of fairest loveliness--a face where innocence, poetry,
and passion all seemed to blend in one grand harmony. There was nothing
commonplace about it. One could not mistake it for a plebeian face;
"patrician" was written on every feature.

Lord Arleigh looked at her like one in a dream.

"If she had an aureole round her head, I should take her for an angel,"
he thought to himself, and stood watching her.

The same secret subtle harmony pervaded[4] every action; each new
attitude seemed to be the one that suited her best. If she raised her
arms, she looked like a statue. Her hands were white and delicate, as
though carved in ivory. He judged her to be about eighteen. But who was
she, and what had brought her there? He could have stood through the
long hours of the sunny day watching her, so completely had she charmed
him, fascinated his very senses.

"Love is fate!" How often had he said that to himself, smiling the
while? Now here his fate had come to him all unexpectedly--this most
fair face had found its way to the very depths of his heart and nestled
there.

He could not have been standing there long, yet it seemed to him that
long hours parted him from the life he had kn