the opposite sex.
Her hands were covered by well-worn gauntlets, and she held a stout and
workman-like crop with a long huntsman's thong.

A poet would instantly have thought that it was a vision of the Spirit
of the Mountains; Stafford only thought it was the most lovely piece of
girlhood he had ever looked at. She did not see him for a moment, all
her attention being engrossed by the sheep which were now wandering up
the valley; then suddenly, as if she felt his presence rather than saw
it, her dark eyes flashed round upon him and she pulled up the big
horse on its haunches with a suddenness which ought to have sent her
from the saddle like a stone from a catapult; but she sat back as firm
as a rock and gazed at him steadily, with a calmness which fascinated
Stafford and kept him staring back at her as if he were the veriest
plough-boy.

And to put it frankly, it was something like fascination. She had come
upon him so suddenly, her feat of horsemanship had been so audacious,
her beauty was so marvellous that Stafford, perhaps for the first time
in his life, found himself unable to utter a word in the presence of
one of the opposite sex. It was only for a moment or two, of course,
that he lost his presence of mind; then he pulled himself together and
raised his cap. She gave him the very slightest of bows. It was the
faintest indication only of response to his salute; her eyes rested on
his face with a strange, ungirlish calm, then wandered to the last
trout which lay on the bank.

Stafford felt that something had to be said, but for the life of him,
for the first time in his experience, he couldn't hit upon the thing to
say. "Good-afternoon" seemed to him too banal, commonplace; and he
could think of nothing else for a moment. However, it came at last.

"Will you be so good as to tell me if I am far from Carysford?" he
asked.

"Four miles and three-quarters by the road, three miles over the hill,"
she replied, slowly, as calmly as she had looked at him, and in a voice
low and sweet, and with a ring, a tone, in it which in some indefinable
way harmonised with her appearance. It was quite unlike the
conventional girl's voice; there rang in it the freedom of the lonely
valley, the towering hills, the freedom and unconventionality of the
girl's own figure and face and wind-tossed hair; and in it was a note
of dignity, of independence, and of a pride which was too proud for
defiance. In its way the voice was as rema