to the perfection of the picture
was this: she did not look in harmony with the scene--the quiet English
landscape, the golden cornfields, the green meadows, the great spreading
trees whereon the birds sung, the tall spire of the little church, the
quaint little town in the distance, the brook that ran gurgling by.

She looked out of harmony with them all; she would have been in perfect
keeping had the background been of snow-capped mountains and foaming
cascades. Here she looked out of place; she was on an English farm; she
wore a plain English dress, yet she had the magnificent beauty of the
daughters of sunny Spain. Her beauty was of a peculiar type--dark,
passionate, and picturesque like that of the pomegranate, the damask
rose or the passion-flower.

There was a world in her face--of passion, of genius, of power; a face
as much out of place over the gates of a farm as a stately gladiolus
would be among daisies and buttercups. An artist looking for a model of
some great queen who had conquered the world, for some great heroine for
whom men had fought madly and died, might have chosen her. But in a
farmyard! there are no words to tell how out of place it was. She stood
by the gate holding the ribbons of her hat in her hand--beautiful,
imperious, defiant--with a power of passion about her that was perhaps
her greatest characteristic.

She looked round the quiet picture of country life with unutterable
contempt.

"If I could but fly away," she said; "I would be anything on earth if I
could get away from this--I would not mind what; I would work, teaching,
anything; the dull monotony of this life is killing me."

Her face was so expressive that every emotion was shown on it, every
thought could be read there; the languid scorn of the dark eyes, and the
proud curves of the daintily arched lips, all told of unconcealed
contempt.

"A farm," she said to herself; "to think that when the world is full of
beautiful places, my lot must be cast on a farm. If it had been in a
palace, or a gypsy's camp--anywhere where I could have tasted life, but
a farm."

The beautiful restless face looked contemptuously out on the green and
fertile land.

"A farm means chickens running under one's feet, pigeons whirling round
one's head, cows lowing, dogs barking, no conversation but crops----"

She stopped suddenly. Coming up the lane she saw that which had never
gladdened her eyes here before; she saw a gentleman, handsome and youn