through his pulses--also like a plunge into an icy pool.

To the farmer folk Mary was merely "queer," but as the man in the buggy
sat looking down at her he realized the promise of something strangely
gorgeous. As she shifted her position a shaft of mellow sunlight struck
her face and it was as though her witch--or fairy--godmother had
switched on a blaze of color.

"I wasn't making fun of you," declared the stranger; and his voice held
so simple and courteous a note that Mary smiled again and was reassured.

The child was still thin and awkward and undeveloped of line or
proportion, but color, which many painters will tell you is the
soul-essence of all beauty, she had in the same wasteful splendor that
the autumn woods had it in their carnival abundance.

Her hair was heavy, and its gold was of the lustrous and burnished sort
that seems to tangle in its meshes a captive fire glowing between the
extremes of amber and tawny copper. Yet hair and cheeks and lips were
only the minors of her color scheme. The eyes were regnantly dominant
and it was here that the surprising witch-like quality held sway. The
school-children had said they did not match, and they did not, for with
the sun shining on her the man in the buggy realized that the right one
was a rich brown like illuminated agate with a fleck or two of jet
across the iris, while the left, its twin, was of a colorful violet and
deeply vivid. Young Edwardes had read of the weird beauty of such
mismated eyes, but had never before seen them.

"Jove!" he exclaimed, and he let the reins hang on his knees as he bent
forward and talked enthusiastically.