he lawn and turned into a shrubbery. "Was he particularly
nervous this morning? Never mind considering about your answer, Mr.
Hartright. The mere fact of your being obliged to consider is enough
for me. I see in your face that he WAS particularly nervous; and, as I
am amiably unwilling to throw you into the same condition, I ask no
more."

We turned off into a winding path while she was speaking, and
approached a pretty summer-house, built of wood, in the form of a
miniature Swiss chalet. The one room of the summer-house, as we
ascended the steps of the door, was occupied by a young lady. She was
standing near a rustic table, looking out at the inland view of moor
and hill presented by a gap in the trees, and absently turning over the
leaves of a little sketch-book that lay at her side. This was Miss
Fairlie.

How can I describe her? How can I separate her from my own sensations,
and from all that has happened in the later time? How can I see her
again as she looked when my eyes first rested on her--as she should
look, now, to the eyes that are about to see her in these pages?

The water-colour drawing that I made of Laura Fairlie, at an after
period, in the place and attitude in which I first saw her, lies on my
desk while I write. I look at it, and there dawns upon me brightly,
from the dark greenish-brown background of the summer-house, a light,
youthful figure, clothed in a simple muslin dress, the pattern of it
formed by broad alternate stripes of delicate blue and white. A scarf
of the same material sits crisply and closely round her shoulders, and
a little straw hat of the natural colour, plainly and sparingly trimmed
with ribbon to match the gown, covers her head, and throws its soft
pearly shadow over the upper part of her face. Her hair is of so faint
and pale a brown--not flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, and
yet almost as glossy--that it nearly melts, here and there, into the
shadow of the hat. It is plainly parted and drawn back over her ears,
and the line of it ripples naturally as it crosses her forehead. The
eyebrows are rather darker than the hair; and the eyes are of that
soft, limpid, turquoise blue, so often sung by the poets, so seldom
seen in real life. Lovely eyes in colour, lovely eyes in form--large
and tender and quietly thoughtful--but beautiful above all things in
the clear truthfulness of look that dwells in their inmost depths, and
shines through all their changes o