jennet or
well-bred English palfrey that would best have suited so fair an
equestrian, I could, without any great exertion of fancy, have dreamed
myself back to the days of the M'Gregor, and fancied that it was Die
Vernon riding up the mountain side, gaily chatting as she went with the
handsome cavalier who walked by her stirrup, and who might have been
Frank Osbaldistone, only that he was too manly-looking for Scott's
somewhat effeminate hero. How beautifully moulded was the form which her
dark-green habit set off to such advantage; how fairy-like the foot that
pressed the clumsy stirrup; how slender the fingers that grasped the
rein! She had discarded the heavy riding-hat and senseless bonnet, those
graceless inventions of some cunning milliner, and had adopted a
head-dress not unusual in the country in which she then was. This was a
_beret_ or flat cap, woven of snow-white wool, and surmounted by a
crimson tassel spread out over the top. From beneath this elegant
_coiffure_ her dark eyes flashed and sparkled, whilst her luxuriant
chestnut curls fell down over her neck, the alabaster fairness of which
made her white head-dress look almost tawny. Either because the air,
although we were still in the month of September, was fresh on the
mountains, or else because she was pretty and a woman, and therefore not
sorry to show herself to the best advantage, she had twisted round her
waist a very long cashmere scarf, previously passing it over one
shoulder in the manner of a sword-belt, the ends hanging down nearly to
her stirrup; and this gave something peculiarly picturesque, almost
fantastical, to her whole appearance.

Upon the second day of my arrival at the baths of St Sauveur, in the
Pyrenees, I had fallen in with my old friend and college chum, Jack
M'Dermot, who was taking his sister the round of the French
watering-places. Dora's health had been delicate, the faculty had
recommended the excursion; and Jack, who doated upon his only sister,
had dragged her away from the gaieties of London and brought her off to
the Pyrenees. M'Dermot was an excellent fellow, neither a wit nor a
Solomon; but a good-hearted dog who had been much liked at Trin. Coll.,
Dublin, where he had thought very little of his studies, and a good deal
of his horses and dogs. An Irishman, to be sure, occasionally a slight
touch of the brogue was perceptible in his talk; but from this his
sister, who had been brought up in England, was entirely free