permitted to pay my
devotions, and Dorothy came to the tap-room in response to my message.

When she entered she ran to me with outstretched hands and a gleam of
welcome in her eyes. We had been rare friends when she was a child.

"Ah, Cousin Malcolm, what a fine surprise you have given us!" she
exclaimed, clasping both my hands and offering me her cheek to kiss.
"Father's delight will be beyond measure when he sees you."

"As mine now is," I responded, gazing at her from head to foot and
drinking in her beauty with my eyes. "Doll! Doll! What a splendid girl you
have become. Who would have thought that--that--" I hesitated, realizing
that I was rapidly getting myself into trouble.

"Say it. Say it, cousin! I know what is in your mind. Rusty red hair,
angular shoulders, sharp elbows, freckles thickly set as stars upon a
clear night, and so large and brown that they fairly twinkled. Great
staring green eyes. Awkward!--" And she threw up her hands in mimic horror
at the remembrance. "No one could have supposed that such a girl would
have become--that is, you know," she continued confusedly, "could have
changed. I haven't a freckle now," and she lifted her face that I might
prove the truth of her words by examination, and perhaps that I might also
observe her beauty.

Neither did I waste the opportunity. I dwelt longingly upon the wondrous
red golden hair which fringed her low broad forehead, and upon the heavy
black eyebrows, the pencilled points of whose curves almost touched
across the nose. I saw the rose-tinted ivory of her skin and the long jet
lashes curving in a great sweep from her full white lids, and I thought
full sure that Venus herself was before me. My gaze halted for a moment at
the long eyes which changed chameleon-like with the shifting light, and
varied with her moods from deep fathomless green to violet, and from
violet to soft voluptuous brown, but in all their tints beaming forth a
lustre that would have stirred the soul of an anchorite. Then I noted the
beauty of her clean-cut saucy nose and the red arch of her lips, slightly
parted for the purpose of showing her teeth. But I could not stop long to
dwell upon any one especial feature, for there were still to be seen her
divine round chin, her large white throat, and the infinite grace in poise
and curve of her strong young form. I dared not pause nor waste my time if
I were to see it all, for such a girl as Dorothy waits no man's
leisure--that is