also stared at me as a curiosity.

Then it was that for the first time I saw Natalie, for owing to
a mistake of my driver I had arrived rather late and had not been
introduced to her. As her father's only daughter, her mother
being dead, she was seated at the end of the table behind a
fan-like arrangement of white Madonna lilies, and she had bent
forward and, like the others, was looking at me, but in such a
fashion that her head from that distance seemed as though it were
surrounded and crowned with lilies. Indeed the greatest art could
not have produced a more beautiful effect which was, however,
really one of naked accident.

An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of
Heaven--that was the rather absurd thought which flashed into my
mind. I did not quite realise her face at first except that it
seemed to be both dark and fair; as a fact her waving hair which
grew rather low upon her forehead, was dark, and her large, soft
eyes were grey. I did not know, and to this moment I do not know
if she was really beautiful, but certainly the light that shone
through those eyes of hers and seemed to be reflected upon her
delicate features, was beauty itself. It was like that glowing
through a thin vase of the purest alabaster within which a lamp
is placed, and I felt this effect to arise from no chance, like
that of the lily-setting, but, as it were, from the lamp of the
spirit within.

Our eyes met, and I suppose that she saw the wonder and
admiration in mine. At any rate her amused smile faded, leaving
the face rather serious, though still sweetly serious, and a