please. Tell my story in the way that seems to you most--natural." And
she bent her forehead for him to kiss.







CHAPTER II

The next day was splendid, as Felix had prophesied; if the winter had
suddenly leaped into spring, the spring had for the moment as quickly
leaped into summer. This was an observation made by a young girl who
came out of a large square house in the country, and strolled about in
the spacious garden which separated it from a muddy road. The flowering
shrubs and the neatly-disposed plants were basking in the abundant
light and warmth; the transparent shade of the great elms--they were
magnificent trees--seemed to thicken by the hour; and the intensely
habitual stillness offered a submissive medium to the sound of a distant
church-bell. The young girl listened to the church-bell; but she was not
dressed for church. She was bare-headed; she wore a white muslin waist,
with an embroidered border, and the skirt of her dress was of colored
muslin. She was a young lady of some two or three and twenty years
of age, and though a young person of her sex walking bare-headed in
a garden, of a Sunday morning in spring-time, can, in the nature of
things, never be a displeasing object, you would not have pronounced
this innocent Sabbath-breaker especially pretty. She was tall and pale,
thin and a little awkward; her hair was fair and perfectly straight; her
eyes were dark, and they had the singularity of seeming at once dull