d, or strange in his face
When we see it at last. 'Tis the same little Cupid,
With the same dimpled cheek and the smile almost stupid,
We have seen in our pictures and stuck on our shelves,
And copied, a hundred times over, ourselves."
--OWEN MEREDITH.

Mrs. Verdon held an untrammelled position in life. She was a rich young
widow, uncontrolled, and without children. The death of her little boy
had been a greater sorrow than the death of a husband who was much older
than herself. Katherine Verdon had adored her child; it was Jamie's
resemblance to her lost darling which had drawn her so strongly towards
him. She had been a widow five years, and was in no haste to marry
again. Like Queen Elizabeth, she coquetted with her suitors, but these
coquetries were of a harmless kind, and never went far enough to set the
world talking. She had a great deal of tact and cleverness, and managed
all her affairs with graceful dexterity.

She was not really beautiful, but in a woman so fortunately situated a
little beauty is made much of. Her figure, tall and slender, had the
flexible grace of ribbon-grass; her little head, regally poised, was
almost overweighted with thick braids of satiny hair of pale gold; small
features, delicate, if irregular, a colourless, fair skin, and pale-blue
eyes, completed this face, which never had a warm tint. Her dress was
costly, but always well chosen, and she had so carefully studied herself
that she could not put on anything which did not become her.

On that summer evening at Richmond she was at her best. Deliverance from
great peril had opened her heart to all good influences. The fear of
losing Jamie was set at rest, and it was a fear which had increased as
the child grew dearer. She was genial, responsive, full of gentle gaiety
and genuine gratitude.

For a whole year Arnold Wayne had listened to the praises of Katherine
Verdon, chanted by his cousins the Danforths. They had found fault with
him, as all his relations did, for leading an unsettled life, and were
always asking when he was going to marry. He had been travelling for
three or four years, associating with all sorts and conditions of men
and women, interesting himself in strange religions, penetrating into
regions which few Englishmen had ever visited, and he had reached the
mature age of thirty-three without having been very deeply and seriously
in love. Of course he had had love affairs.