r; she withdraws from my reach.
Once this day I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look down her
deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress!
beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her
chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her
wild woods and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come
again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there
was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No;
final loss I do not fear, but long delay----

"It is now night--midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at
Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase
to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the
staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How
closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes
upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked--slim and swift as
a northern streamer!

"I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone
were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In
her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with
her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning,
she looked, I thought, spirit-like--a thing made of an element, the
child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindrop--a thing
never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following
her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I
talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at
her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me--not even when
she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs.
Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word
as she returned; nor in this did I fail.

"'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her.

"'Why? the hall is too cold.'

"'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.'

"'But I shiver.'

"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and
distant. Why?'

"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the
moonlight.'

"'_Do not--do not_ pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few
quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes
are cruel.'

"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she re