en picturesque-looking
men--dandies, fops--but this was the first time she had ever seen a
noble and magnificent-looking man.

"If his soul is like his face," she thought to herself, "he is a hero."

She watched him quite unconsciously, admiration gradually entering her
heart.

"I should like to hear him speak," she thought. "I know just what kind
of voice ought to go with that face."

It was a dreamy spot, a dreamy hour, and he was all unconscious of her
presence. The face she was watching was like some grand, harmonious poem
to her; and as she so watched there came to her the memory of the story
of Lancelot and Elaine. The restless golden waters, the yellow sands,
the cliffs, all faded from her view, and she, with her vivid
imagination, saw before her the castle court where Elaine first saw him,
lifted her eyes and read his lineaments, and then loved him with a love
that was her doom. The face on which she gazed was marked by no great
and guilty love--it was the face of Lancelot before his fall, when he
shone noblest, purest, and grandest of all King Arthur's knights.

"It was for his face Elaine loved him," thought the girl--"grand and
noble as is the face on which the sun shines now."

Then she went through the whole of that marvelous story; she thought of
the purity, the delicate grace, the fair loveliness of Elaine, as
contrasted with the passionate love which, flung back upon itself, led
her to prefer death to life--of that strange, keen, passionate love that
so suddenly changed the whole world for the maid of Astolat.

"And I would rather be like her," said the girl to herself; "I would
rather die loving the highest and the best than live loving one less
worthy."

It had seized her imagination, this beautiful story of a deathless love.

"I too could have done as Elaine did," she thought; "for love cannot
come to me wearing the guise it wears to others. I could read the true
nobility of a man's soul in his face; I could love him, asking no love
in return. I could die so loving him, and believing him greatest and
best."

Then, as she mused, the sunlight deepened on the sea, the rose became
purple, the waters one beaming mass of bright color, and he who had so
unconsciously aroused her sleeping soul to life rose and walked away
over the sands. She watched him as he passed out of sight.

"I may never see him again," she thought; "but I shall remember his face
until I die."

A great calm seemed to fall