her feet off the trunk, in the first movements of waking. He sat
down on the rock, and placed his feet on the stem, securing her
ankles between his own: one of her arms was round a branch of the
fork, the other lay loosely on her side. The hand of this arm he
endeavoured to reach, by leaning forward from his seat; he
approximated, but could not touch it: after several tantalising
efforts, he gave up the point in despair. He did not attempt to
wake her, because he feared it might have bad consequences, and he
resigned himself to expect the moment of her natural waking,
determined not to stir from his post, if she should sleep till
midnight.

In this period of forced inaction, he could contemplate at leisure
the features and form of his charmer. She was not one of the
slender beauties of romance; she was as plump as a partridge; her
cheeks were two roses, not absolutely damask, yet verging
thereupon; her lips twin-cherries, of equal size; her nose regular,
and almost Grecian; her forehead high, and delicately fair; her
eyebrows symmetrically arched; her eyelashes, long, black, and
silky, fitly corresponding with the beautiful tresses that hung
among the leaves of the oak, like clusters of wandering grapes.
Her eyes were yet to be seen; but how could he doubt that their
opening would be the rising of the sun, when all that surrounded
their fringy portals was radiant as "the forehead of the morning
sky?"



CHAPTER XV: THE FARM